Drawing on the City

Grand Canal Basin

I grew up in an older Dublin which is now fast disappearing and being replaced with block after block of glass, steel and concrete. Some parts of the new city are better than others, like the newly build Brew Dog building at the end of the quays near the Dublin Docklands and Grand Canal Basin.

 

 

Grand Canal Basin

Interior of Brewdog and the View across the river Liffey to the new Central Bank building

 

 

 

Drawing on Ulysses and the city for inspiration

These sketchbook mixed media drawings are quite textured and gritty.  They depict a rather shabbier older Dublin, full of faded grandeur and character, a Joycean Dublin.
I grew up in this older city which is now fast disappearing and being replaced with block after block of souless glass, steel and concrete monstrosities. It makes me mad and sad at the same time.

 

Do You have a Cheese Sandwiche?

Where is the Ormonde Hotel

Robert Emmet

Hibernia Holles Sreet Hospital

Burtons of Duke Street

Bookshop Duke Street

A Cheese Sandwiche

 

Some watercolour painting and drawing from the Inisheer Féile na gCloch drawing workshop 2019

It was nice to be invited back to host the drawing on location sketch outs again this year. We were lucky with the weather staying dry for the most part. I did fall off my bike and sprain my wrist which wasn’t so nice, luckily for me it was the left wrist rather than my drawing hand.

 

Boat on Inisheer

Boat on Inisheer 2

Aran Landscape

Oh Fence De Fense – A response…

Oh Fence De Fence

Oh Fence De Fence was a direct response to the Finnegans Woke exhibition in Rua Red in Tallaght, that came out of several conversations between Dirk Hudson and James Moore.

Oh Fence De Fence refers to the duality of fences; particularly in a geo political context. Depending on your viewpoint a fence can be a defensive or offensive structure.

The fence is also a metaphor for the barriers erected in our minds that prevent us taking action, seeing the world in a different way, empathising with others, taking sides or sitting on the fence.

Franko B – Spare some change please

15th – 17th November 2017

Eleven artists spent a physically and mentally intense but rewarding three days at a series of workshops with performance artist Franko B at Rua Red in Tallaght, Co. Dublin. Part of the programme was to create a performance piece in a defined area of approximately 1 square yard. Over a two hour period I sat cross legged in a hoodie pretending to be homeless. As people passed by I asked them for money. I was successful in my deception and managed to collect €10.80. This exact same amount then went towards a homeless charity via an online credit card transaction.

The Inisheer Zibaldone

This year JesseJames spent the entire month of August as artists in residence on Inis Oírr.
We created the Inisheer Zibaldone a handmade artists notebook recording our experiences on the Aran island. We welcomed contributions from many sources both on the island as well as from as far afield as America and Brazil. For more information about the project please check out the link http://www.inisheerzibaldone.com

There is a touch of the artist about Old Bloom

Here are a couple of images from a group exhibition I was involved in which was based on a four day sketching event related to places around the north side of the city.
All of the works are connected in some way to Ulysses and are currently on display at the Olivier Cornet gallery.

Since the exhibition opening I have begun to work up a more stylized image based on the Sirens episode of Ulysses which I started drawing while we were situated opposite the Ormonde hotel where the action in the book takes place.There is a black and white line drawing version of the same image in the exhibition.

I have coloured this one on the computer but I will eventually do a painted version. Likewise with the Duglacz butcher’s scene, where Bloom goes to buy a kidney for his breakfast.

The third image shows my notebook in the background, the Buddha depicted is now in Collin’s Barracks and is mentioned in Ulysses. The photograph  is linked from the gallery facebook page.

Dublin Plein Air Festival 18th – 24th June

Thanks to Paul D’Arcy and everyone involved in the 1st Dublin Plein Air Festival. It was fun to participate despite being rusty, thankfully the weather was glorious which makes life so much easier for the plein air painter. Here is an acrylic from the event, a small canvas of Lambay island from the Rush coastline 30 x 24cm.

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An Irish Brazilian collaborative art exchange

Marcia Moreno, a Brazilian artist and art professor and myself organised a collaborative art exchange which involved travelling to Brazil. The theme was Home, Home away from Home. This was an artistic examination of the native and  immigrant (in Ireland or Brazil) experience of trying to create a home.  Together with Marcia we created a set of reciprocal lectures, workshops, discourses and group exhibitions at Chapeco University in Santa Catarina, Brazil and at the Pearse Museum in Dublin, Ireland.

Below is a small selection of work by students and a flavour of the art exchange.

Using google translate to communicate

Google Translate

Chapeco gallery in Brazil

Longing – assemblage

Student work

Group photo at the Pearse Museum

Jesse-James holding a work inspired by homeware giant Ikea. A House shaped falla, destined to be burned, inspired by the housing crisis and property bubble is seen in the foreground.

Marcia and translator lecture at the pearse Museum.

Longing – assemblage

Split screen video performance piece by Marissa Baldiera shown in Chapeco Brazil and in the Pearse Museum in Dublin

Student work

Student work

Student work

Student work

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Drawings by Robots

I made this short video after another visit to the Science Gallery in Dublin. Despite the advancement of technologies, drawing from life, is still a challenge for these robots. There is a mechanical stiffness to the finished results. For now we  humans can still draw and paint better than a robot can.