Focus °1 – GAVIN HOGG

ed. John O’Regan

interview with the artist; essay by Stephen Joyce 

ISBN 978 0946846 689      48 pages (paperback)    20x17cm     29 illus     text: Eng / Sp

The dominent theme in Gavin Hogg’s work is ‘the celebrating of living’, and thus they display an extraordinary power and vitality. Explored in this book is Hogg’s interest in painting history, his use of collage, the language of his paintings, his Irishness, and the playful and serious dimensions to his paintings.It is a lively, colourful and complex body of work.

EXTRACTS

"I was struck one wintry afternoon in Hogg’s Limerick studio as to just how powerful his art is, not just the technical skill of the painter, but the mind and, indeed, the very heart that informs his every brushstroke. The paintings, with their many layers of meaning and simultaneously different directions of thinking, refuse to sit easily in linear, sequential sentences. Each individual painting is like a pebble dropped in a body of clear water, sending out countless ripples, where, even as the pebble sinks, the reflections on the water’s surface are distorted. It is only a pebble. It is only water. But there is a great deal happening."

— from the essay by Stephen Joyce

"I prefer to identify myself with a particular skill and tradition. ‘Artist’ is far too ambiguous a word these days. Nobody seems to worry that if everything is art, then nothing is art. Duchamp spoke of his desire to destroy the art object. I think he must be laughing long and deep if he can see the mess that he has created, a mess that most people don’t even see as existing ... He has certainly succeeded in blurring the boundaries. But that, in one sense, is a liberation; you are free to reinvent the rules as you see fit. It only becomes tedious when you are confronted with ‘gimmick’ as a substitute for content or emotion. Emotion... Now there’s a dirty word in the current art climes. Popular culture bombards us on one side with sensationalism and sentimentality, and the art world gives us cynicism and superficiality. Artists are busy making things outside of themselves. Emotionally it’s easier to deal with. It’s the way of the modern academy."

— Gavin Hogg in conversation