Beschreibung:

HERCULES AND ANTAEUS NO. II, 1985 Felim Egan (b.1952)
Signature: signed, titled and dated on reverse Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 55¼ x 63in. (140.34 x 160.02cm) Provenance: Exhibited: Literature: In 1979 Felim Egan won a Rome Scholarship to live and study in the eternal city. In Italy he met artists like Clemente and Chia. Around that time Achille Bonito Oliva was proselytising the trans-avant... t-garde. Figurative painting had also made a return and what appeared to be the self-indulgent and non-referential nature of abstract art was called into question. A year or so after returning from Rome Egan developed an interest in the mythology of the Romans and the Greeks and how it had influenced Italian art. At this point the figurative element in his work was beginning to emerge. In 1984 he exhibited a series of large scale paintings at The Third Eye Centre in Glasgow where he drew outlines of figures borrowed from Michelangelo and Donatello and applied his particular logic to them. He has said: 'I was trying to deal with polarization and tensions within the paintings, no longer in an abstract way but by bringing in, overlaying it with the intellectual level of mythology.' These new works included some laconic female nudes but mostly male figures struggling, wrestling or contemplating action. Among these new works, he completed a set of paintings on the theme of Hercules and Antaeus. The genius of Egan's art is the act of placement. Many of these works involved the siting of a gestural splash, attempting to accommodate a particular violence but also displacement, disorientation as well as the nature of rootedness. One knew Egan's ability with line and subdued colour relationships but now he declared his skill at orchestrating elements of diverse cultural/visual languages - classical, oriental, twentieth century constructivism and pop art - into meaningful and potent compositions. Hercules and Antaeus No. II belongs to this period shift in his work. Professor Liam Kelly October 201 more