May 2021
I started doing these just as an excuse to draw, and I am struck by the way they are time capsule-ish. They are essentially a drawing of an image made by the kids. So its a curated created image- they deliberately took these of themselves and thought them silly enough to keep. It also indicates their age- they can use devices- and to me it clearly indicates their age- as in that they find these images of themselves amusing. I like that they are a drawing of an image. They’re not meant to be realistic or figuratively accurate and that in itself is freeing. I was really trying to get them to be looking out of the image, that was my goal. The drawing style is not normal for me and is a bit non- style, in that anyone could do these. There’s something kind of Leaving Cert portfolio- like about these to me..
I tried the painting one as I wanted to try out these style of painting, one colour acrylic on a canvas that I’d previously primed with a watery mixture of black and yellow ochre. I think i want to use this format for the planned portraiture series ‘They Walk amongst us’ the idea for the portrait series of local people I see about the place here, who I envisage as gods hiding in human form, so they can go about unobserved and see whats really going on.
