The Flight II, ©John O’Grady
14.25″ x 18″ x 0.75″, oil on canvas, ready to hang.
SOLD
Last week the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins was in Tasmania where he unveiled a memorial to Irish women convicts transported there 170 years ago.
The women, “Mná Díbertha or Banished Women”, made the 16,000 mile journey, facing an unknown country and unknown future, with little hope of ever seeing their families and home again” he said in a moving speech.
His thought provoking speech was the starting point for this painting and a reminder that millions flew from the land to other countries like America and Australia at various times, forced by oppression or wanting to survive dire situations.
When travelling around Ireland, especially in the west, you’ll come across abandoned cottages. Each one once housed a family and the mother was at the centre of that home.
In my painting the abandoned home sits at the top of the hill and is gradually being encroached upon by nature. Our eye is led up through the abandoned field that once would have fed the family living there.
Yes the painting was motivated by those thousands of women that had left the land but also what struck me and Higgins expounded upon, is how history repeats itself.
The memorial, he said, should remind us of “the suffering of migrants of our times” and that the “trauma of displacement and forced exile are not experiences confined to our past”.
Today thousands of people are fleeing war and looking for a safe place they can call home.
They too had a homeland and belonged somewhere and they too are now in need of compassion, understanding and a roof over their heads.
As the song says, home is where the heart is.
I’d love to read your comment.
Thank you, John, for your moving description of the inspiration for this evocative painting. I find ruined dwelling places very poignant as well and wonder about the former inhabitants. The trees in silhouette seem like silent witnesses to what has transpired here. Yet what is quite striking for me is that nature, which humans have endeavored to dominate for all of recorded history, is in fact indifferent to our movements and suffering and simply remains the blind force it has always been — encroaching, surviving, adapting to our blighting of the earth by whatever means it can. The wild grasses reclaim the fields, the trees grow tall and old, the light illuminates the clouds to create in this image a sign that we might perceive as hopeful. And the world turns.
May I just add that the gorgeous brush work brings the grasses to life while what appears to be rubbing to reveal underpainting paradoxically creates an impression of something dreamed, longed for, or dimly remembered. How you balance these forces is a mystery to me, but something truly wonderful.
Hello Jo,
The ‘encroaching, surviving and adapting’ that you mention Jo is so true and very apposite considering the year that the earth has experienced and clearly what we as humans are doing to it. Thank you for your comment on the grasses Jo, your reading of how the grasses were achieves is spot on. I was looking at the m again after receiving your comment and they do seem have the atmosphere you mention.
a really moving piece and a very interesting combination of colours and shapes. Congrats
Thanks very much Eoin. that’s great to hear abot the shapes and colour
Thanks very much Eoin. that’s great to hear about the shapes and colour
This is an emotionally charged painting John. The low viewing point and high horozon emphasises the foreground colour and soft texture of the grasses. The effect enables the sculptural shapes and contours of the trees in sillhoutte against a sky full of mystery. It has a wistful air embued with memory and a sense of the past. The overall composition and colour is very pleasing to the eye.
Thank you Chris for your thoughts on the painting. I agree the trees in sculptural relief are a counterpoint to the soft texture of the grasses. As you mention Chris the painting does have a wistful atmosphere, imbued hopefully with some of the feeling that Higgins conveyed in his speech.