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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



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

