Beschreibung:

JOHN B. KEANE (1993) Robert Ballagh (b.1943)
Signature: signed and inscribed , J.B. Keane, centre right Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 168 by 92cm., 66 by 36.25in. Provenance: Commissioned by the present owner Literature: Robert Ballagh - Artists Designer, A Retropective, with essays by Ciaran Carty and Declan Kiberd, RHA, Dublin, ill., p. 62 Robert Ballagh’s practice is prolific and wide ranging as an artist but also as a designer (stamps, banknotes, set design and photography). His set designs include those for Becket’s Endgame, Wilde’s ... Salome and The importance of Being Earnest and Riverdance. After a brief flirtation with abstraction, earlier in his career, which he found somewhat vacuous as a language, he strove for a more literary, narrative, figurative and accessible art which would allow him to explore various aspects of art, life and politics. Indeed literature would provide Ballagh with structural devices which he would work visually. The structure of Flann O’Brien’s At Swim Two Birds is such an example where form is created within a form, an image within an image and where content and form are always interwoven. Ballagh has always been aware of art-making being a constructed practice, de facto artificial, allusive and contrived. Consequently he has incorporated visual puns and purposeful contrivances into his works, in some cases to attempt to break down barriers between art and life. His art practice is a continual dialogue between himself, the art of picture making and society. The portrait of John B.Keane is an example of this approach where he has the playwright stepping out of the constructed picture space and into a domestic or perhaps gallery space. Keane (1928 – 2002), of course, was one of Ireland’s best loved and popular writers and had a strong connection with the Irish people. The work was originally commissioned in 1992 by Groundwork who produced a number of Keane’s plays. The landscape is that of Ballybunion strand where the writer enjoyed walking regularly. Ballagh also has the wispy clouds which drift out of the inner picture to reflect the author’s comparison of his turbulent emotions to fast moving clouds. Another device, often deployed by the artist is to work his signature into the painting as an integral element rather than as the usual post painting gesture. This can be seen on the theatre programme jutting out of the playwright’s left jacket pocket. There is a study for this painting John B. Keane – The Kerryman (1992) which, while somewhat different in composition, is based on the same principle of stepping forward to his audience out of the picture frame. This art/life device is also used in a poster Ballagh made for The Joyce Summer School James Joyce on O’Connell Street (1991) which has the novelist walk out of the frame indicating the ongoing relevance of his work to future generations. Robert Ballagh was the subject of a major retrospective of his work in 2006. His work is in many public collections including: The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, National Gallery of Ireland, Albrecht Dürer House, Nuremberg, Ulster Museum, Trinity College, Dublin, The Gordan Lambert Collection and IMMA. He is also represented in many private collections at home and abroad. Professor Liam Kelly Belfast February 200 more