A very enjoyable wenesday last week spent going to see 'Vivid Field', an exhibition of some of Hughie O'Donoghue's recent and older works at Abbot Hall Gallery in Kendal. I nearly didn't go - the weather forecast promised the worst day of the week - but I'm glad I didn't wait until thursday or saturday (final day), which were both wetter and drearier by far.
Hughie O'Donoghue has been a favourite artist at least since I went to see a major exhibition of his work in Birmingham, maybe nearly a decade ago. No, before that, even - the Whitworth was showing his set of carborundum prints, A Line of Retreat. I was hooked from there on in. I haven't noticed any of his exhibitions being on within easy reach for quite a while, now, but once I'd spotted this one (and with only a couple of weeks left to run) I was definitely going to make the trip.
I'm a lazy viewer of art, and I know it. Due to the bored company I have on occasion taken with me to exhibitions, I really can get through a gallery in an amazingly short period of time. What that means, of course, is that while I might have glanced at a lot of art, I have missed out on a tremendous amount of depth down the years due to lack of application, and that quite often it's luck whether anything makes a deeper impression on me. But you just can't approach O'Donoghue like that. Everything about his work concerns layers and depth and then more layers and further depth.
Hughie O'Donoghue has been a favourite artist at least since I went to see a major exhibition of his work in Birmingham, maybe nearly a decade ago. No, before that, even - the Whitworth was showing his set of carborundum prints, A Line of Retreat. I was hooked from there on in. I haven't noticed any of his exhibitions being on within easy reach for quite a while, now, but once I'd spotted this one (and with only a couple of weeks left to run) I was definitely going to make the trip.
I'm a lazy viewer of art, and I know it. Due to the bored company I have on occasion taken with me to exhibitions, I really can get through a gallery in an amazingly short period of time. What that means, of course, is that while I might have glanced at a lot of art, I have missed out on a tremendous amount of depth down the years due to lack of application, and that quite often it's luck whether anything makes a deeper impression on me. But you just can't approach O'Donoghue like that. Everything about his work concerns layers and depth and then more layers and further depth.
Vulcano Solfatara III
O'Donoghue's extensive use of his father's wartime experience and of submerged bodies, his emphasis on myth and memory, is pretty well documented. Various combinations of these themes form the basis for, I would imagine, most if not all of his work, and this exhibition was no exception. Cumae and Vesuvius appeared in the most recent works here, but for all the layers of interpretation that can be made, what captures me more immediately is (are?) the colour, light, shadow, the often vast size of canvas, and perhaps more than anything the way the image is frequently half-buried, so that much of the act of viewing is the excavation of what is there. I just like his work so much.
I liked Kendal too - not enough time to do much more than wander up the street a way, but I'm looking forward to a lazier return visit sometime soon. I cut across (a beautiful trip, full of Postman Pat hills - no, really! - and stark tree silhouettes against the skyline, and I didn't see another vehicle or person on the B road from one end to the other) from there to Kirkby Lonsdale, which was empty - not how most people see it, by all accounts. On a grey, lowering day, the town looked built for weather - hunched down and ready to withstand whatever winter might throw at it. I find it hard to imagine that it looks as good in the summer, but maybe that's just how I feel about summer.
I liked Kendal too - not enough time to do much more than wander up the street a way, but I'm looking forward to a lazier return visit sometime soon. I cut across (a beautiful trip, full of Postman Pat hills - no, really! - and stark tree silhouettes against the skyline, and I didn't see another vehicle or person on the B road from one end to the other) from there to Kirkby Lonsdale, which was empty - not how most people see it, by all accounts. On a grey, lowering day, the town looked built for weather - hunched down and ready to withstand whatever winter might throw at it. I find it hard to imagine that it looks as good in the summer, but maybe that's just how I feel about summer.
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