Seolfar an taispeántas seo ag 7in Dé Sathairn 23 Bealtaine. Failte roimh chách!

Ón Chroí Amach: Cleamhnas Péinte

Bhuail Cornelius Browne agus Paula Corcoran le chéile sa bhliain 1987, laistigh de chúpla seachtain dóibh clárú mar mhic léinn i gColáiste Náisiúnta Ealaíne agus Dearaidh i mBaile Átha Cliath. Go gairid ina dhiaidh sin, bhog na déagóirí isteach le chéile. Ó shin i leith, tá siad ina gcónaí san áit chéanna. Thar na blianta, ba nead de pháipéar agus de phinn luaidhe, de ghualach agus de fheadáin phéinte, de bhoird agus de chanbháis gach teach ina raibh siad. Is scéal grá í an taispeántas seo, agus scéal beirte ag déanamh ealaíne le chéile ar feadh a saoil fásta ar fad. 

  Péinteálann Paula sa bhaile, ag aistriú idir dhá bhord péinteála, ceann sa chistin agus ceann eile sa seomra leapa. Péinteálann Cornelius amuigh faoin aer, go minic laistigh de chlos Paula, agus ní bhíonn sé choíche níos faide ná siúlóid ghearr ón doras tosaigh. Cruthaíonn sé seo nasc eatarthu, ag tabhairt an taobh istigh agus an taobh amuigh le chéile, agus ag léiriú go bhfuil ealaín agus saol fite fuaite lena chéile. Sa taispeántas seo, a cuireadh le chéile go speisialta don Ghailearaí, feictear an próiseas seo go soiléir sa dá theachín éan péinteáilte, ceann déanta ag gach ealaíontóir, áit a bhfuil go leor neadacha tógtha agus sicíní beaga tagtha ar an tsaol iontu. Trasna spás an ghailearaí, labhraíonn na teachíní éan seo go séimh lena chéile, agus cineál ceoil á chruthú san aer eatarthu. 

  Déanann ‘Home Birds: A Duet in Paint’ ceiliúradh ar dheichiú bliain ó tháinig Paula slán ó ailse, agus ar a dara bliain ó ainéaras inchinne a réab, ar tháinig sí slán uaidh. Bhí Paula i gcónaí ag péinteáil ábhar neamhbheo, agus í ar feadh a saoil ag bailiú soithí do chleití agus do bhláthanna. Ach ó tháinig sí slán ó ailse thromchúiseach, tá na héin bheaga is ansa léi sa saol ag cur beocht ina hábhar neamhbheo. Tuirlingíonn siad ar a tábla, ag amharc ar an té atá ag amharc orthu, suíonn siad ar na vásaí, agus eitlíonn siad leo. Ó bhí sí ina páiste, tá a hintinn lán de ghairdíní fiáine agus de mheas ar an dúlra, agus tá spiorad Paula fite fuaite le seasmhacht éin cheoil. 

   Ó ghlórtha na ndreoilíní agus iad ag cúpláil go glaonna na bhfaoileán agus a mbolg folamh acu, tá ceol na n-éan fite fuaite i bpéintéireacht Cornelius. Níor phéinteáil Cornelius faoi dhíon ná idir ceithre bhalla ó chríochnaigh sé a thaispeántas céime NCAD i 1992. Laistigh de shrianta a cheantair féin, agus é ag filleadh ar na háiteanna céanna arís agus arís eile—ó shéasúr go séasúr, bliain i ndiaidh bliana, idir lá agus oíche agus i ngach aimsir—cuireann sé a chorp féin faoi thástáil mar láthair aireachta, mar phointe beag feasachta i lár corraíl na haimsire agus spléachadh an dúlra. 

   Cé gur cuireadh oiliúint fhoirmiúil orthu mar phéintéirí, le himeacht na mblianta ó bhain siad céimeanna san Fhínealaín amach, tá Cornelius agus Paula tar éis bogadh de réir a chéile ó phríomhshruth an tsaoil ealaíne i dtreo domhan imeallach na cruthaitheachta. Tá an réimse seo d’ealaín fhísí agus seachtrach ann le fada, saor ó shrianta an choinbhinsiúin, agus é lán d’ealaíontóirí a chruthaíonn saothair uathúla bunaithe ar a gcuid aeistéitic féin. Tá craobhóga ó thraidisiúin ealaíne éagsúla — idir choincheapúil, acadúil, thíre agus shaonta — fite sa nead ealaíne baile a thóg Cornelius agus Paula le linn a saoil le chéile; ach sa deireadh, is leo féin í. Homebirds: A Duet in Paintings

This exhibition will launch at 7pm on Saturday the 23rd May. All welcome.

Homebirds: A Duet in Paint

 Cornelius Browne and Paula Corcoran met in 1987, within weeks of enrolling as students at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin. Soon afterwards, the teenagers moved in together. They have lived in the same dwellings ever since. Over the years, each successive home has been a nest of paper and pencils, charcoal sticks and paint tubes, boards, and canvases. This exhibition is a love story, and the story of two people making art together for the entirety of their adult lives. 

   Paula paints at home, alternating between two painting tables, one in the kitchen, another in the bedroom. Cornelius paints outdoors, often within earshot of Paula, and never further than within walking distance of their front door. This creates a cross-fertilization between two souls, harmonizing interior and exterior, entwining art and life. In the present exhibition, conceived especially for An Gailearaí, this process finds visual expression in the two painted birdhouses, one by each artist, in both of which many nests have been built and chicks born. Across the gallery space, these birdhouses gently communicate, generating in the air a kind of songline. 

   ‘Home Birds: A Duet in Paint’ celebrates Paula’s tenth year as a cancer survivor, and her second year as the survivor of a ruptured brain aneurysm. Paula has always been a still life painter, all her days collecting vessels for feathers and flowers. However, since battling an aggressive cancer with low five-year survival rates, the little birds she loves in life have been enlivening her motionless subject matter. They alight on her table, glance at the viewer, perch on vases, fly away. Her mind, since childhood, filled with wild gardens and a veneration of nature, Paula’s spirit has fused with the resilience of songbirds. 

   Birdsong, from the duets of mating wrens to the cries of empty-bellied gulls, has woven itself into the brushwork of Cornelius’s painting life. Cornelius has not painted under a roof, surrounded by walls, since completing his NCAD degree exhibition in 1992. Within the strict confines of his home patch, painting the same places across the seasons, year in, year out, at all times of day and night, in all weathers, he tests his body as a site of perception, a miniscule nub of consciousness, in the midst of meteorological confrontations, and nature’s fleeting epiphanies. 

   Although formally trained as painters, the decades since they graduated with degrees in Fine Art, have seen Cornelius and Paula move steadily away from the mainstream art world, towards a peripheral world of creation. This realm of outsider and visionary art has long existed, free of the constraints of convention, peopled by artists producing unique works based on their own individual aesthetics and parameters. The homespun art nest built by Cornelius and Paula during their lives together, incorporates twigs from many different art trees, from conceptual and academic, to folk and naïve, yet in the end it is entirely their own.