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Irish Arts Review
A Moment of TransitionAuthor(s): Catherine MarshallSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 26, No. 2 (SUMMER 2009), pp. 62-63Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25654677 .
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SUMMER 2009
AWARD
A Moment
of Transition A first-time exhibitor at the RHA Annual Exhibition, Jonathan Dalton is a worthy and exciting winner of the
2009 Ireland-US Council and Irish Arts Review Portraiture
Award, reports Catherine Marshall
Jonathan Dalton's painting, I had imagined
something more substantial (Fig 1), the win
ner of the fourth prize for portraiture
co-sponsored by the Irish Arts Review and the
Ireland-US Council at the Royal Hibernian
Academy's Annual Exhibition throws up
something of a challenge to the critic, the
viewer and the art historian. What is never
in question is its very fine technique. The
painting, in acrylic on board, is so accom
plished that it beggars belief that it was
painted by an artist who studied philosophy rather than painting, who is very young in
his career as a painter, and who is repre
sented at the RHA for the first time with
this prize-winning work.
So where should one begin a discussion
of this work? Since it has just won the
prize for portraiture it makes sense to
discuss it from that perspective. The old
dictionary definition of a portrait was 'pic
tures of men and women drawn from life',
but then the same dictionary entry goes on
to remind us that 'the word is used to dis
tinguish face-painting from history-paint
ing'.1 Of course old categories are
constantly re-defmed, and modernism's
response to the portrait has been largely to
THE HALF-NOTICED CARPET IS NOT CARPET AT ALL BUT SAND; IT OBLITERATES THE BASE OF THE STANDARD LAMP, DISTURBS THE LINE OF THE SKIRTING BOARDS AND SHATTERS OUR PERCEPTION OF A NORMAL DOMESTIC INTERIOR
either (a) abstract from it, or (b) experi
ment with new media approaches to it.
Jonathan Dalton follows neither of these
options and yet his 'portrait' too, stretches
the definition. The painting clearly
represents a 'person drawn from life', a
well-dressed woman sitting on a leather
couch, but the expression on her face, the
tension in her pose, the almost minimal
austerity of the room and the theatricality
of the lighting all suggest a narrative. This
is no simple likeness of a real person (the artist's elder sister) but rather a realistic and
recognisable representation of a familiar
person at a particularly significant moment.
The title of the painting, I had imagined some
thing more substantial, reinforces that percep
tion but offers no more definite clues to
what was imagined or what may have
caused the gap between imagined reality
and the exigencies of the moment. Is it the
artist's state of uncertainty we are asked to
witness or the sitter's?
None of the usual reminders of the sit
ter's status or interests are provided to
resolve the mystery Other portraits of
well-dressed women sitting on couches
with their shoes off come to mind, such
as the famous photographic portrait of
Margaret Thatcher, as Prime Minister of
Great Britain, during the Falklands War in
the 1980s.2 In the photograph Thatcher
sat, still working, late into the night, hair
relentlessly fixed in place and with maps,
briefcase and handbag to confirm her
identity. Only her shoes, discarded on the
floor beside her, show us that we are
voyeurs into a private moment but no
matter how much we pry she will always
be working. The shoes are noticeably miss
ing in Jonathan Dalton's painting, and
with that realisation comes another, the
half-noticed carpet is not carpet at all but
sand; it obliterates the base of the standard
lamp, disturbs the line of the skirting
boards and shatters our perception of a
normal domestic interior. The picture
62 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I SUMMER 2009
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j..
brings us to the edge of the unknown.
Leonardo Da Vinci famously placed Judas
on the same side of the table as Christ and
the other disciples in The Last Supper, claim
ing that with his knowledge of physiog nomy he could make the traitor visible
without having to resort to the obvious
but traditional expedient of separating him
from his peers. Something of that interest
in the person within is visible also in
Jonathan Dalton's portrait. Likeness it
certainly is but the artist's ability to express
emotional strain and uncertainty make this
picture less of a portrait and more of a
1 JONATHAN DALTON 2009 / WAS ANTICIPATING SOMETHING MORE SUBSTANTIAL acrylic on birch board 91x123cm
history picture. It does exactly what
Hogarth did in order to give a universal
dimension to the individual likeness in
paintings such as The Graham Children.3 The
individual here represents all of us in those
moments of transition that combine tenta
tiveness and the courage to look ahead.
In the sea of celebrity portraits that we
live in nowadays, the importance of the
individual cannot be overstated. That is
why the genre of portraiture continues to
be so central to art-making, with or with
out the public face. It is also why it is so
important that the Irish Arts Review and the
Ireland-US Council support it with this
annual award, especially when worldwide
recession make it difficult for the artist to
pursue his calling. It is exciting to see that
the RHA is open to submissions from
emerging, self-taught artists and that the
judges had the imagination to reward it.
1 Dictionarium Brittanicum; Or a more Compieat Universal Etymological English Dictionary, London, 1735
2 Photograph reproduced in the Daily Mail, 23/8/08 3 William Hogarth, The Graham Children, 1742,
Collection, T?te Britain.
CATHERINE MARSHALL is on secondment from the IMMA to the Royal Irish Academy where she is co-editing Volume V of the Art and Architecture of Ireland Project.
SUMMER 2009 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW 63
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