Circa Art Magazine - Magazine texts - Spring 2002 - C99 Article: State of the Artist (Brian Cronin)

First of all I would like to thank Cian and his class for their interest in my work and for their great questions. What age are you guys again? Anyway here goes. Do you prefer using computer or hand? Do you use state-of-the-art technology for your work? I like computers, especially Apple. What kind of computer do you use? Do you use Apple? Brian, we know that you put the work in the scanner and then mix them, getting a different picture. How long do you take on the computer with your work and what are you trying to find in your picture? How many pictures have you made in the last year? Did you ever do something by mistake in art and then it turned out to be brilliant? How many magazines have you been in? As an illustrator I try to work on as many different topics as I can so I am not pigeonholed into working on just one type of subject. So I can be working on several unrelated topics at any one time. As a result my drawings appear in many different newspapers and magazines, such as Rolling Stone (a music magazine), The New York Times (newspaper), GQ (a man's fashion magazine) and Newsweek (a weekly international news magazine). I would say I have been in approximately...in fact out of my own curiosity I counted 206 magazines and newspapers (worldwide) that my drawings have appeared in. Some of these are no longer in publication but have been replaced by new ones. Sticking with your statistical questions I did 77 commissioned drawings in 2001. I love to work with my hands and have always created my work with pencil, paint and paper. I use a computer (Mac) only to experiment with colour, I scan in my sketches and add and subtract colour until I reach a decision. This can range in time from 10 minutes to a few days depending on the piece of work. Once I have decided on a colour palette I mix my paints and store them in jars till I am ready to paint. The colours on the screen are always lighter and more vibrant so I spend a long time mixing paint to try and match as close as possible. Of course the paper absorbs a lot so it dries darker and then there is the whole printing process which can change things again. I tend to just concentrate on the illustration and let the printing process do what it has to. Otherwise you would go mad for sure. I make mistakes all the time, and sometimes something new will develop I find that when I have finished an illustration and sent it off I forget about it till I see it printed or get the original back. It is then that I see what I was trying to do and can get a handle on where the work is taking me. What kind of car do you drive? I don't have a car at this time as getting around where I live (Manhattan New York) is best by walking. But I have had cars in the past. My last one was a BMW 2002, a real classic (not to be confused with a new BMW of this calendar year). Myself and Si�in (my wife who is also an artist) are thinking of getting a place upstate where we can have some studio space so we will need a car. We want to get a pickup truck. The one we are thinking of is a Chevy (we had seen a brown one driving by when we were upstate recently it looks great). That has a space behind the seats for our dog Patsy. If I could buy any car I liked and I had endless amounts of cash I would buy by an Austin Martin (the original James Bond car in gold colour). Do you think that George Bush will do well as a President? Does George Bush like art? Do you think Clinton was a better President than Bush? Does the American Government give money to art? I'd rather talk about cars than George Bush but since you asked, I like him. I don't think I would have voted for him (I didn't have a vote then as I only just became an American citizen in June 01. I think since 9,11 he has done a great job. It's hard to say if Al Gore got in what he would have done? I liked Clinton a lot. I enjoyed watching and reading about him. He had a lot of humor and seemed to be enjoying himself and as a result it was kind of contagious. He lifted people up, but then it was a different time, George Bush is reacting to much more serious stuff. As far as I know the US government doe's not give money to Art. Not sure what kind of taste George W has but I just saw a clip on TV of him looking at a portrait of himself and he looked happy. Why do you think George Bush does not give money to art ? I really don't know. I think he has other plans for money. Is art the same since September 11? Are more people going to the galleries in New York than there were before September 11? Are they buying? How did you feel when the Twin Towers fell? Were you near it? Have you drawn any pictures of the Twin Towers? Did September 11 affect art? I was in Italy on September 11 and was stunned at the news. We live on 12th street in the Village (Greenwich Village) which is close to where the Towers were, We see them every day when we are out in our neighborhood. I think 9,11 changed everything. In some way I think it's too early to say how it has affected art. I still go to galleries and I guess others do as well. I think people will always want to see images that were made by people. I have done a number of pictures relating to 9,11. In fact after the disaster every assignment was related to the subject whatever the publication. Who is your favourite artist at the moment? Do you ever buy anyone else's pictures? What artists do you dislike now? Do you have many pictures hanging up in your house? I don't have a favorite artist at the moment and I don't really dislike any either. Si�in bought me a drawing by Pierre Le Tan a few years ago which I love, but I tend not to buy work. I'm just as happy to look at it in galleries or books. Besides I change my mind a lot and would get bored looking at the same pictures. Having said that the only work on the walls of our apartment is mine and Si�in's. Si�in is a textile designer and has designed a wonderful throw which lies on our couch. It's big and it's pink. So if we get bored with our art collection we just put it in storage and replace it with more of our stuff. Who is your painter hero? I don't have a painter hero but I do like a lot of artists' work. I guess the best way to fill you in would be to list the artists from my bookshelf: Picasso, Bacon, Hockney, Calder, L�ger, Magritte, Eric Fraser, Milton Glaser, Robert Rauschenberg, Philip Guston, A.R. Penck, Ralston Crawford, Rockwell Kent, Eileen Gray, Domenico Tiepolo, Rachel Whiteread, David Salle, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, David Suter, Frida Kahlo, Georgii Stenberg, Iosif Gerasimovich, Egon Schiele, De Chirico, Le Corbusier, Jenny Saville, Peter Brooks, Ralph Steadman, Francesco Clemente, Barbara Kruger, Stuart Davis, Chuck Close, Ross Bleckner, Brian Maguire, Glen Baxter, Kathy Prendergast, Seymour Chwast, Tamara de Lempicka, George Grosz, Keith Haring, Jackson Pollock, Henry Darger, Christopher Wool, Calder, Gerhard Richter, Antony Gormley, John Kindness. Would you run a gallery? Is art getting more competitive? I wouldn't know how to run a gallery and wouldn't be interested as there would be too much time spent talking. It's like a business and that just gives me the creeps. I like to keep things simple and straightforward. In fact the less talking the better. I do virtually no talking all day. Most of my day-to-day conversing is done via e-mail. That includes getting assignments. There are a lot more illustrators than there used to be and art directors have a world of talent to choose from (it really is not important where you are any more). There will always be other artists who have better ideas and that kinda shakes you up and keeps you on your toes.

Images by pupils of Form 4 ¹ , inspired by the work of Brian Cronin: Column to left, from top : Eoin Mulcahy, Myles Rooney, Gerard Nash; Column above, from top : David Turley, Evan McIntyre, Cian Tisdall, Conor O'Shea

What age were you when you started art ? When you were younger what did you dream for your future - was it art or something else? Who taught you art? I guess I was 3 or so. I don't know exactly but I was very young. I think everyone starts off drawing and painting when they are small as a way to learn. I don't think I thought of it as art, it was more like magic, creating images that I couldn't even explain. I always wanted to be an artist although I told everyone I wanted to be an astronaut. I don't know why. I guess it sounded more dangerous. I also wanted to be a soldier but deep down from when I first started to draw I knew I wanted to do this forever. When I was at school (High School) I was not interested in anything other than art. I really wasn't interested in any of the other subjects. I had a hard time spitting back information. Art was so basic, just making marks on paper. I knew I could do that. I don't think anyone taught me. I don't think anyone really can, you just draw and paint and you discover it for yourself. If you really like something you spend a lot of time doing it and you grow with it. What was your first picture ? Again I don't remember my very first but I do remember an oil painting I did when I was 12 or so it was a painting of the cattle market on the North Circular. I grew up opposite it so it was an obvious subject. The cattle market was full of small houses for the farmers to make deals with the other farmers. Surrounding them were loads of fences where the cattle would be. My house was very tall so from the top floor looking down on the market it looked like a village in the country. Fortunately at the time I didn't realize that it was the cow's last resting place before they were slaughtered. Had I known that I wouldn't have made a picture of it. If you had a choice to go somewhere and draw something would you either go to space, stay here on earth and draw a picture of your family or go underwater? It depends. If I am just going for a short trip or forever. If it's just a short trip then I would like to go to space. It must be amazing to look at the Earth from space but I wouldn't like to be stuck out there. Do you use the internet to get pictures off ? I send some of my finished drawings via e-mail. It's really great. I don't have to wait for the Fedex guy, I can just send them when I'm ready and it also means I can stretch my deadline (printing deadline for a magazine/newspaper) till the very last minute. When I was living in Italy last year I sent all my illustrations that way but now that I'm back in the U.S. I have started to send out the originals again. The reason I started to send the originals again is when I would scan my illustrations I would sometimes correct the image, maybe brighten a colour or remove an unwanted mark. The end result was that the original was different from the scanned version. When I was working on the original I knew if I made some unwanted marks I could clean them up later without having to redo the entire illustration. As a result the original finished illustration was becoming more like a sketch rather than a finished piece of work. I think the computer removes you away from the reality of things. What is your favorite picture that you haven't got bored of? Usually my most favorite piece is the piece I just did. I just did a painting of a man's head (it looks like me a bit but it is not supposed to). He has a shaven head. I don't. It's a very pale except for the shadow of the shaved head. What I wanted to do was to focus on the top of the head, forcing you to look at that area. From a distance you really only see the shape of the top of the head. I really think it worked out as I wanted it to. I like it a lot. What do you think art will be like in the year 2050? Who is leading the art world now? What is the most competitive area in art at the moment?

Manchester United 3	Picasso 2
Super Mario Brother 5	Damien Hirst 1
Declan McGonagle 6	IMMA 0
Chevy pickup 4	New VW Beetl e 0
Brown 3	Chartreuse 0
White socks 5	Black socks 1
Illustration 2	Fine art 2
Dogs 10	Cats 10

Brian Cronin is a Dublin-born artist now settled in New York. Margaret Corcoran is an artist based in Dublin. Pupils of the 4 ¹ form in St. Mary's College Rathmines Junior School, Dublin 6 (age in brackets): Hugh McGovern (10), Evan McIntyre (10), Eoin Mulcahy (10), Gerard Nash (10), Harry Norton (10), Conor O'Shea (10), Kevin Roche (10), Myles Rooney (10), Vincent Sheridan (10), Mark Staunton (10), Samuel Stephenson (11), Conor Timmons (10), Cian Tisdall (10), Emmet Tracey (10), David Turley (9), Jonathan Wagner-Coffey (10), Colin Walsh (10), Gerard Walsh (10), Maurice Walsh (10), Jack Wynne (11)