The notion of the Hero/Saviour, (as documented by Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell to name but two among many others since Homer, Virgil and Ovid), wanders in and out of these paintings. This uneasy alliance of the banal and the sublime, the futile and the magnificent, those who aspire and perhaps fail, those whose lives are led for others in a noble sense and those who hold an unshakable sense of duty to some greater person or force are probably all contained in any one person. To try to understand by painting is, in some ways a futile yet noble aspiration. That painting about ancient places and histories has echoes in the modern world is unarguable, but whether painting about them has any relevance is for someone else to say. What seems clear to me, however, is that not to paint about them would be wilful negligence on my part. Further, for me, although my paintings must work as paintings, in a formal sense, I have little time for a notion that these formal elements, on their own, constitute anything more than some pretty decoration, no matter how sincerely meant, or rigorously executed.
The following is a description of the ten largest pieces in this exhibition and some of the ways that they unfolded. These paintings contain the main themes, and treatments of those themes which run through the whole exhibition. All are oil on cotton, and follow a diptych format. Some of these diptychs are (conventionally) painted on two separate panels; others are single panels that have been divided horizontally. The earlier pieces are noticeably more lively in their surfaces than subsequent ones. In order to maintain my stated aim of exploring visually the notion of "….a reconciliation of disparates" (Bryan McMahon, "The Master"), I felt that I ought to include contrasts of surface and content along with the tonal, chromatic, architectural and human elements. This involved painting areas of plain flat colour beside the more obviously content driven panels, and leaving them! The temptation is always to add and adjust.
As I worked, I noticed a pattern emerging, where my well-thought-out plans seemed to vanish once I started to paint. The paintings seemed to take control, rather than me. I found this to be disturbingly different to the usual occurrence where you reach a point in a painting at which you know you have established all the elements, when something else happens, which seems to take the work out of your hands. This part of the process has been well discussed by various writers and artists over time. Dom Patrick Hederman in his book, "The Haunted Inkwell" describes the process as (in my loose terms) setting up the means by which the acquired skills of the practitioner can work, then during the execution of the work - allowing space by which 'The Being' can enter and inhabit the work. (I find the term 'The Being', too specific and have told him so, but I understand where his thesis is necessarily rooted). For me, this time it was more like one of those out-of-control dreams, where you are in the driving seat of a speeding car, but without a steering wheel, or you are travelling where the darkness is total and opaque and are completely unaware of your whereabouts, or direction of travel. Some elements of the familiar process were there, like a kind of muscle memory, but when I could perceive evidence of my skill in carrying out the work, it struck me as surprising, as though they were being carried out by someone else and I was merely observing the process.
John Philip Murray, Lissardagh, 2007.