And drive
back home, still with nothing to say.
Except
that now you will uncode all landscapes
By this:
things founded clean on their own shapes,
Water and
ground in their extremity.
From
Seamus Heaney's
The peninsula
 |
Top to bottom above:
John Brennan: Drinking horizon, 43 x 58
cm; Uncoded land I, 76 x 100 cm; Uncoded
I, 43 x 58 cm; Skirting landfall, 76
x 100 cm; courtesy Hallward Gallery
|
John Brennan's exhibition
of oil paintings at the Hallward is his attempt to fulfill
Heaney's invocation to "uncode all landscapes." Taking
as his inspiration this poem and the landscape of the
Beara Peninsula in Co. Cork, Brennan investigates the
relationship between ground and water, between land and
sea and between solid and void. "With nothing to say,"
Brennan instead creates images that abstract the landscape,
eschewing narrative and focusing on elemental shapes and
dynamic harmonies of colour, texture and form.
Brennan's compositions contrast interlinking
rectilinear shapes divided by sharp lines or by gently
blended tonal variations. These rectangles are juxtaposed
to create patterns of alternating texture, tone and hue
that are independent of but simultaneously relate to the
landscape he is depicting. Roughly scraped paint, deep
grooves of variable thickness and richly impastoed areas
contrast with smooth shapes and overpainted layers of
alternating opacity, with the paint applied in differing
directions to further heighten the visual tension.
Paintings such as Grounded I,
II and III and Uncoded Land I and
II refer more to the 'ground', using whites, deep
rusty reds, khaki browns and musty greens to lend an earthy
feel to the composition. These works adopt an aerial view
of the land that gives them a more abstract appearance.
Others, such as Ground and water, Skirting landfall
and Drinking horizons I and II relate to
the 'water' of seascapes, depicting the vapours of the
weather with blues, steely greys and muted browns creating
a misty atmosphere. These paintings are more evidently
representational, showing a high horizon that blends the
sky with the sea, both of which contrast strongly with
the ridged golden-brown sand and the sturdy blocks of
the coastline. While his paintings are unpeopled, there
are suggestions of human intervention in the ploughed
textures of the green and brown fields that hug the coastline
and in some of the more rigid, rectangular blocks of industrial
greys and browns, hinting at buildings and constructions.
Verging on the decorative and lacking
vigour, Ground and water is not a
very exciting or innovative body of work. However, it
seems that Brennan has intended that his paintings have
something of a palliative, restful and restorative effect;
so rather than driving "for a day all round the peninsula,"
as suggested by Heaney, the alternative is to become immersed
in the images of Brennan's uncoded landscapes.
Eimear McKeith is a writer
based in Dublin
John Brennan, Ground
and Water, Hallward Gallery, Dublin, April / May
2004
