Works °13 — GWEN O’DOWD

interview and intro by Rosemarie Mulcahy

ISBN 978 0946641 390     32 pages (paperback)    20x15cm    18 illus

Gwen O’Dowd’s highly individual style and the tactile quality of paintings puts her at the vanguard of Irish landscape painting. As the artist herself says, ‘each painting has its own particular history’, and this book looks at the histories, stories and places that are the heart of her work.

EXTRACTS

"Gwen O’Dowd is one of the most original and consistent talents in Irish painting. Nature is her subject; not the calm, ordered nature of the classical tradition, but nature of the Rom­antics, turbulent and awesome – agitated seas, mist-shrouded mountains, glittering ice-fields. Her paintings make demands on the viewer. They are devoid of anecdotal or topographical references and at first may appear abstract, but soon one becomes aware that they are the result of long and intense observation and are charged with the atmosphere of the environment that inspires them.
          The work is finely balanced between representation and abstraction. Gwen O’Dowd pursues her art with fierce independence and is undistracted by prevailing trends. She evades categorisation and sees herself neither as an abstract painter, nor as a landscape painter. Landscape is, for her, an excuse to paint and a vehicle for expressing emotion. At the centre of the work is her concern with the transience of nature and its cycle of growth and decay."

— from the introduction by Rosemarie Mulcahy

"Each painting has its own particular history. Take for example one of the Canadian paintings – Bride’s Veil. It came about quite accidently. It is the name of a glacier which I caught a brief glimpse of on a journey through the Canadian Rockies. It did, however, remain a potent image in my head. Named by the Indians – the title existing long before the painting – it became one of those obsessive images which one keeps destroying until eventually some­­thing resembling that first impression appears. In this case, I began formulating a mental image and there were certain definite criteria involved. I knew, for instance, that I wanted a solid physical presence; I perhaps knew the shape and size. I had a bare pencil sketch to help jog my memory; in other situations one might have a variety of back-up material – it differs each time. The strong colour that you find in the glaciers of that particular area had to be an integral part – a magnificent blue-green turquoise against white, the result of deposits built up over centuries. That’s it, theoretically anyway, I can’t really say much else, but I know I always mistrust an image that comes too easily."

— Gwen O’Dowd in conversation