FRONTS/ BACKS

THE COMPLEX PRESENTS AN EXHIBITION OF NEWLY COMMISSIONED WORKS BY

FERGUS FEEHILY, GLENN FITZGERALD, SARAH O’BRIEN, & TANAD AARON.

May 5th to May 26th 2023, The Complex, 21-25 Arran Street East, Dublin 7.

During my first meeting with Fergus, Glenn, and Sarah, I started with: “I’m drawn to all three of you as artists because when I look at your paintings, they intensely trick me into thinking I can paint too”. In hindsight, I think I was alluding to the fact that all three artists make paintings using materials that are easily found and gathered, such as sweet wrappers, office prints, glue, household paint, tinfoil, zip lock bags, coloured paper, old frames, glitter, carpet underlay, cardboard, wood, screws, and various textiles. Encouraging a form of art-making through intuition as opposed to tradition. Paintings formed in such a way may be seen as “poor” in some cases. 

This meeting became the starting point for a steady flow of conversation that took place in an informal Signal chat, interrupted by scheduled zoom meetings – more potent in manner. We met, one to one and as a group, to make sense of what the exhibition could be. This conversation was and continues to be wide ranging. The chat centred around painting and each artist’s experience with this activity. Similarities came to the fore, punctuated by some curious distances.

At the same time, I was in contact with Tanad Aaron which took place over email mostly. Our conversation started with modular wall systems and fixated on horse hair and its integral use within wall-making techniques. When thinking about Tanad’s involvement in the exhibition, I imagined there being a distance between him and the other three artists. They were all aware of each other’s involvement but no communication was made until a month or so before the exhibition – I was hoping there’d be two different trains of thought (1:Fergus, Glenn, Sarah, and 2:Tanad) that would eventually collide to create impactful obstructions and unexpected gellings.

It feels to me like these conversations, in their breadth, have become frequencies between us all, vibrating, amping in intervals, subtle and purposeful. 

Chronological points within the conversations:

Modular wall systems

Pillar-like structures

Obstructions

The art market

In Defense of the Poor Image by Hito Steyerl for e-flux Journal

Chris Martin at The Douglas Hyde Gallery (2015)

Will Benedict, Dialogue of the Dogs at Centre d’Art Contemporain Geneve

Richard Tuttle, 3rd Rope Piece, 1974

Ian Kaier

Josef Svoboda

Theatre

Mark Swords.

Gabriel Orozco, The Weight of the Sun at The Douglas Hyde Gallery (2003) 

Solar Politics by Oxana Timofeeva (2022)

Yevgeniya Baras at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, March 2015 (video interview)

‘Year Zero : Faciality’ – a chapter from A Thousand Plateaus by Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze (1980)

Social class

Fronts/Backs

Michel Majerus, Early Works at KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space by Brian O’Doherty

We need to talk about painting by NCAD MFA at The Complex

Post-it impressionism

Eddie Murphy, a painter who lived and worked in Rosscarbery, West Cork

Audience awareness

Posters

Sweets & Crisps wrappers

Office printers

Glue

Carpet underlay

Vivian Sutter

Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (1952)

In and Out of the Studio – ICI Berlin

Barry Flanagan

Bookmaking

Horse hair

Isabelle Graw

Joe Gilmore at FORM Space

Mark Fell

Bill Griffin

Louisa Casas

Mark O’Gorman, 2023