Search This Blog

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Galleries: Crawford Gallery, Cork - Louis Le Brocquy and Barrie Cooke, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork

Louis Le BrocquySamuel Beckett 1994, 93x73cm underglass
multi directional mark making appears to be done with a fine brush. It is a spare delicate style. There are thin dark underlayers of transparent paint. The eyes look hollow and ghost like. Thick impasto of white paint is applied on the nose, forehead and cheeks. Many layers appear to be built up to develop the whole. 
Ink to a sketch of Samuel Beckett by Louis Le Brocquy
 http://aldin89.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/image_of_samuel_beckett.jpg

This is the actual version on display in the gallery:
 http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/LouisleBrocquy2.html


Barrie Cooke, Portrait of John Montague 3'6"x4' Large painting with a lot of impact.  Done in a loose gestural style. Spontaneous looking marks, watery paint, no impasto, Paint a little thicker around the neck,and hand - locations of main colour contrasts. The complementary palette of orange and blue tones appears to be placed exactly where emphasis is needed most. Most of paint looks scrubbed on and allowed to drip on the jumper.  Horizontal black stripes in the sitter's top are echoed nicely by the black and white horizontal band behind. This seems to be balanced out by the slightly diagonal but upright stance towards top right and the vertical dark line to the sitter's left side, also the gaze to the left.  I don't think the paint application can be appreciated  very well in this online image:
http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/BarrieCooke3a.html

No comments:

Post a Comment