Works °12 — PATRICK HALL

interview by John Hutchinson; intro by the artist

ISBN 978 0946641 338     32 pages (paperback)    20x15cm    17 illus

Patrick Hall’s often-fraught relationship with painting as he delves into the human psyche and the imagination has resulted in works of great honesty and intensity. His struggles with the medium, his past, his philosophies and his work techniques are all discussed in this book. He is a painter who has been a huge influence on younger generations of Irish artists, and is much admired and respected.

EXTRACTS

"I’ve stuck to painting as the one thing that I would survive by, or die by. Maybe I’m not destined to become the painter I thought I would be; maybe I’ll have to settle for being a good, run-of-the-mill painter. Instead of aiming for perfection, I’m now aiming for completeness, to complete myself – on whatever level that might be. Maybe I need to let go of the idealism that I was brought up with – the high, unspoken perfectionism that developed from my dead parents’ seemingly unfinished lives.
          Painting is only part of life. In the last few months, since I’ve dislodged the stone of painting from my stomach, it has felt like the release of a flood of water. It is almost as if a well has been unblocked. It might diffuse the energy, but I don’t think it will. The current of energy that was going into the painting was decreasing anyway, because it was proving to be so difficult. One of the things I’ve experienced all my life was difficulty – when I got up in the morning I assumed everything was going to be arduous. I can’t take that any more, even if that means getting rid of painting in the process. I want to abandon difficulty. I want to make the paintings simpler. I want to make my life simpler and more enjoyable. I don’t mind if I end up painting flowers in a vase, like Manet did in his old age. I’ve no more ambitions with regard to painting – I want to excise perfectionism, and just to paint."

— Patrick Hall in conversation