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| Paul Doran: Untitled, 2005, oil on linen over board, 36 x 41cm; courtesy Green on Red Gallery |
Gislebertus told me marks a definitive development in Paul Doran’s artistic practice, revealing a conceptually rigorous exploration of the act, meaning and history of painting. The exhibition comprises pared-down, demanding works that are a notable departure from the luscious colours and bravado flourishes of paint which he had become associated with.
This new series of paintings creates a dialogue between form and content, between surface pattern and spatial articulation, between complex, unresolved figurative elements and the vibrancy and variety of the brushstrokes.
The title of the exhibition, Gislebertus told me, is a bold invocation of a twelfth-century sculptor, acknowledging Doran’s debt to the emotive and spatial qualities of Gislebertus’ carvings on Autun Cathedral and referring to his investigation of the origins of painting. Gislebertus’ legacy infuses these works, as does the influence of fourteenth-century Sienese painting. This is evident in the new, figurative elements in his work, and in his use of fleshy pinks, muddy browns and stony greys.
It is also reflected in the sparse hang of the exhibition, which gives it a taut balance. From a body of work of fourteen paintings, only seven are on display. The paintings are isolated on the walls, giving them a precious, almost devotional quality. But while they have enough space to be contemplated on their own, the manner in which they are displayed also encourages the discovery of relationships between the works, particularly as some are busy and complex, while others are drastically simplified and distilled. Doran’s previous works, although non-representational, had titles with strong associative qualities. These paintings, however, are untitled; thus they can be seen as a group, and the evocative title of the exhibition is constantly to the fore.
The paintings are complex and contradictory on a number of levels, with the representational elements forming a dialogue with the materiality of the surface. Basic architectural structures establish a sense of recession, but they are unresolved and incomplete. They are juxtaposed with organic, amoeboid shapes that, in some cases, have been sliced from another location and placed onto the surface of the paintings – a process which involves both violence and delicacy. Shapes have also been cut out of the surface, revealing layers of paint underneath.
There is deliberate incongruity in the articulation of space, where forms seem to flatten into pattern and the recessional aspects vie with the surface qualities of the paint. Although the build-up of paint may seem sparse in comparison with the heavy encrustations of his previous work, the use of collaged elements and the variety of the brushstrokes create rich, sculptural surfaces that compete with the figurative aspects of the works.
These paintings reveal a striking departure for Doran; they are almost an act of exorcism, with a new, stark quality that seems to reject the visually attractive, seductive excesses of his earlier paintings. But there is also a sense that this is only one stepping stone in a continuing exploration, and that other significant developments can be expected from Doran in the future.
Doran may have returned to the origins of Western painting for this body of work, but a hint of anxiety and a pervasive sense of violence, confusion and disjuncture express a distinctly contemporary condition. A quote from Beckett comes to mind which, in many ways, encapsulates what Doran is attempting to achieve: “To find form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist.”
Eimear McKeith is visualarts critic for the SundayTribune.
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