Out of the Head
Out of the Head
MAR 29 – MAY 31 2022 :: Wednesday to Saturday, 1 - 6pm or by appointment.
Artist: Brian Bourke
A body of work spanning 40 years by one of Ireland’s most important artists, Brian Bourke, will hang together for the first time in the Claremorris Gallery from 26th March. “Out of my Head” features 30 mixed media works on paper and paintings.
Dating from 1984 to the present day, the works unveil the artist’s creative process – a process that he returns to over and again throughout his career. The work reads as a visual stream of consciousness through line and colour, an automatic, uninhibited relationship between pen and page.
The drawings represent multiple faces with the artist’s self-portrait recurring throughout. Compositions also portray faces with striking resemblance to the artist, his family and his ancestors. Speaking about his drawings the artist commented, “From an early age I was doing drawings and drawings and drawings and drawings and drawings. And these drawings have taken a line of their own and I follow it. The examination of the subconscious is on the sheet and what happens there is what I think. If I could explain them, I wouldn’t do them.” He adds, “There is an extraordinary privacy about it[…]With these little drawings, this was an entirely private affair between me and the mechanism of making work.”
"The work reads as a visual stream of consciousness through line and colour, an automatic, uninhibited relationship between pen and page."
Rosemarie Noone, Claremorris Gallery, said “It is a great privilege to be able to show these extraordinary drawings which have never previously been exhibited. Throughout his career, Brian created these works alongside the landscapes, still lives and portraiture for which he is best known. They are a departure from studied compositions to a kind of automatic drawing. They represent a most interesting vein of the artists life’s work and are, for me, his most compelling drawings. ”
Louis de Paor, Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at NUIG, said “Brian Bourke has imagined a way of seeing that is unique to him but has the capacity to transform our way of looking so that the world is renewed and reformed, more fully itself than before.”
The show opens on March 26th and runs until April 9th.
Gallery hours 1 – 6pm, Wed. to Sat. or by appointment.
Rosemarie Noone, Claremorris Gallery, said “It is a great privilege to be able to show these extraordinary drawings which have never previously been exhibited. Throughout his career, Brian created these works alongside the landscapes, still lives and portraiture for which he is best known. They are a departure from studied compositions to a kind of automatic drawing. They represent a most interesting vein of the artists life’s work and are, for me, his most compelling drawings. ”
Louis de Paor, Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at NUIG, said “Brian Bourke has imagined a way of seeing that is unique to him but has the capacity to transform our way of looking so that the world is renewed and reformed, more fully itself than before.”
The show opens on March 26th and runs until April 9th.
Gallery hours 1 – 6pm, Wed. to Sat. or by appointment.
WORKS
"Out of the Head IV"
Drawing
31.5cm x 39cm
Framed
“Contemplating the Ineluctable II”
Mixed media on paper
43 x 35cm
Framed
1985
"Out of the Head II"
Drawing
31.5cm x 39cm
Framed
"Contemplating the Ineluctable IX"
Mixed media on paper
43 x 35cm
"Contemplating the Ineluctable IV"
Mixed media on paper
34 x 28cm
Framed
"Contemplating the Ineluctable V"
Mixed media on paper
36 x 43cm
Framed
"Out of the Head VIII"
Mixed media on paper
36 x 43cm
Framed
"Contemplating the Ineluctable III"
Mixed media on paper
43 x 35cm
"Polycephaly V"
Mixed media on paper
34 x 28cm
Framed
"Polycephaly XII"
Mixed media on paper
43 x 35cm
"Polycephaly II"
Mixed media on paper
53.5 x 43cm
Framed
"Polycephaly III"
Mixed media on paper
53.5 x 43cm
Framed
"Polycephaly I"
Mixed media on paper
53.5 x 43cm
Framed
