Irish Arts Review

The coercion of substanceAuthor(s): Catherine MarshallSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 28, No. 3 (AUTUMN [SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2011]),pp. 58-59Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23049495 .

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AUTUMN 2011

EXHIBITION

The coercion of substance Form and colour in Sam Walsh's new series of paintings at Visual in Carlow, tantalise

but ultimately remain evocative, writes Catherine Marshall

The

exhibition of Sam Walsh's

post-2008 work 'The Coercion

of Substance' opens in Visual

in Carlow on 17 September after

which it will travel in January to the

Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda and,

later, to the Regional Cultural Centre

in Letterkenny. Like all of his previous

exhibitions this one will be antici

pated with keen interest by those who

are already familiar with his work,

especially as his intention in this body

of work is to do something he has

been working towards for some time;

he intends to represent what he

believes is the proper balance between

drawing and painting. That may

sound simple, as straightforward as

Walsh's overall aim in his art, which

is to present something profoundly

complex in the simplest possible way

without diminishing or reducing it to

the merely banal. Of course that's not

simple at all, especially for someone

like Walsh who respects and values

nuance more than most.

The debate between colore (paint

ing) and disegno (drawing) is as old as Michelangelo and Leonardo and

has occupied generations of artists

ever since. For many this comes down

to presenting each one separately, the

drawing carrying the brunt of the idea

and the painting largely taking

responsibility for the emotional

aspects of the work. While Walsh

appears to agree with this he doesn't

necessarily equate the colder more

cerebral aspect of the work, however

important that might be, with draw

ing. In his artist's statement to accom

pany the exhibition he refers to 'the

poetry of drawing' and 'the prose of

painting' (my italics). This is a rever

sal of the norm which is to consider 2

58 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I AUTUMN 2011

1 SAM WALSH b. 1951 2 CLOONLARA XVI MERRIONII2010 acrylic/oil 2011 acrylic/ oil on canvas on canvas 50x50cm 150x150cm

the drawing as the bare structural

skeleton of a work, while the lyricism

resides in the colour and brushwork.

Perhaps the key here is that no matter

what stimulus prompted a particular

painting or drawing, it is that under

lying structure of the narrative, object

or landscape that suggests poetry to

Sam Walsh. He has always loved

The coercion of substance

Catherine Marshall

1 SAM WALSH b. 1951 MERRIONII2010 acrylic/oil on canvas 50x50cm

2 CLOONLARA XVI 2011 acrylic/ oil on canvas 150x150cm

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Fri, 13 Jun 2014 09:32:33 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

up in glazes so that the viewer, who is

prepared to work for his/her pleasure,

can look into the dark mass where

depth and movement slowly reveal

themselves and that engages in a tense

dialogue with more static areas beside

or around it. Revealingly he does his

thinking through drawing and has

identified 'a feeling of arrogance

all the more rewarding because it has

no fixed outcomes. The interplay of

both disciplines on the same canvases

in this exhibition calls attention to

two ways of being, thinking and expe

riencing that are about the structures

of existence itself.

As Gemma Tipton points out in her

perceptive essay in the catalogue,

Walsh's mission is to encourage new

ways of seeing. The forms that

intrude into his colour fields, or

appear to be pushed out of them,

evoke a myriad of familiar objects but

the clues they contain never add up to

a graspable phenomenon. Instead they

insinuate themselves into our brains,

tantalising but not revealing. The

same is true of the colours they bear.

'A colour remembered is more emo

tive and more accurate like a scent or

a sound', he says in his statement.

Everything in these chimeric images,

created over the past four years, some

of them while he was a resident at the

famous Albers Foundation in New

NO MATTER WHAT STIMULUS PROMPTED A PARTICULAR PAINTING OR DRAWING, IT IS THAT UNDERLYING STRUCTURE OF THE NARRATIVE, OBJECT OR LANDSCAPE THAT SUGGESTS POETRY TO SAM WALSH

drawing and was a founder member

of the National Contemporary

Drawing Collection at Limerick City

Gallery. He regularly draws in black,

usually charcoal, ink or conte crayon,

but even when he paints a flat black

on to a canvas, as in Ambit 1, 2001

he makes it work in a way that flat

colour cannot usually do. He builds it

3 ARMOR VIII 2009 acrylic/oil on canvas 150x150cm

U PETROCOREII 2011 acrylic/ oil on canvas 100x100cm

5 WOBURN III 2010 acrylic/oil on canvas 150X150CM

about painting' ('The Boundaries of

Abstraction'interview with Brian

McAvera, IAR, Winter 2007, p 86),

perhaps because he already knows

from his drawing what he wants the

painting to look like and is nervous

that it may not work. The drawing on

the other hand comes from the

exploratory, freer side of his brain,

York, is about the subtle glimpses of

things known and understood or seen

and not understood but full of poten

tial, if we, as responsible viewers, are

wise enough to respond to the invita

tion they offer. ■

Sam Walsh 'The Coercion of Substance' Visual, Carlow, 17 September 2011 - 6 January 2012.

Catherine Marshall is Co-Editor, of Vol V, Irish Art and Architecture, Royal Irish Academy (forthcoming).

AUTUMN 2011 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW 59

3 ARMOR VIII 2009 acrylic/oil on canvas 150x150cm

U PETROCOREII 2011 acrylic/ oil on canvas 100x100cm

5 WOBURN III 2010 acrylic/oil on canvas 150X150CM

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Fri, 13 Jun 2014 09:32:33 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions