'Black Mountain' mixed media on paper.
Felim Egan comes from the margins. Raised in the
border town of Strabane, his outsider status was confirmed
by a teenage determination to pursue
a career in art. He studied in Portsmouth and
London, an Irishman in a not-so-friendly, early-
l970s England. Later, he settled at Sandymount on the edge
of Dublin city, a place where sky meets sea meets sand. He
is at home on the brink, his vision informed by the periph-
eral, and yet Egan produces art that is anything but edgy.
His latest show of abstract paintings at the Kerlin Gallery
holds no surprises. Earthy tones predominate, ground stone
mixed with acrylic paint producing a textured surface, as
though each canvas has been cut from a rough-plastered
wall. It is an approach that has worked well. Egan has
reached a point where no collection of contemporary Irish
art is complete without an example of his work: just one day
after the opening, more than half the paintings were already
sold. But this white space is their natural habitat. Two blush
ruby red, one hums with peachy flesh tones, there is a cheery
yellow or two, and the rest are blues and greys.
To categorise Egan’s paintings solely on the basis of
colour is instinctive, an automatic reaction to the fact that
while overall hue and tone varies between the works, what
actually happens on the canvas seldom does. Egan employs
a deliberately limited visual vocabulary, honed over more
than 25 years to a bare alphabet of curved lines, thin
horizons, half moons and squares.
It is as though he is driven by a desire to bring order to
things, to transform the world around him into a visual
metaphor that is calming, soothing and carefully controlled.
In his latest offerings, much of the effect comes from the
play between two elements: curtailed circles cutting across
blank dominoes of complementary shades like eye-shadow
duos. Groups of squares float in fields of thick, layered
brush strokes; they are poised, ready to glide over and across
one another as though caught mid-movement, like an
impossibly slow-moving computer game of Tetris.
The squares bring to mind Sean Scully, the Irish-born,
American-based artist with whom Egan shares a nature-
inspired palate. Like Scully, his canvases simultaneously
echo two extremes of Irish culture: ancient fields divided
and subdivided, and the blank windows of towering sky-
scrapers. But, although working with a carefully restricted
set of abstract gestures can produce painting that is arresting
and visually and mentally challenging, Egan’s muted
visions are quieter than that; they open a space for cahn con-
templation as opposed to eye-opening revelation.
He works on groups of paintings at the same time,
layering pigment and letting it dry, reiterating his chosen
motifs like a mantra. Because this way of working is
essentially a form of meditation, it should come as no
surprise that the end result is repetitive, that it puts
comforting shape on a world that can be both harsh and
beautiful. In a room full of these paintings, it’s easy to fix on
a favourite, but it’s difficult to escape the feeling that once
you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. '
Egan hit the ground running with his inclusion in the
Rose ’84 exhibition, and he is an undisputed commercial
success. His canvases grace hotel lobbies up and down the
country, his prints and watercolours are beloved of restau-
rant owners. The Kerlin show includes five immaculately
framed watercolours on paper, which fade in the monolithic
physical presence of the acrylics, feeling more like prepara-
tory studies than anything else, and struggling to escape the
unfortunate air of poor man’s Egan.
There is no denying that there is a consistency and
integrity to what Egan does. His is a remarkably singular
vision, but it is also essentially safe, far from radical and,
at times, almost painfully subtle.
His installations, such as the 1996 panels in the atrium of
the National Gallery of Ireland, are easily -mistaken -for
pleasing aspects of the interior design. Despite their delicate
differences, his paintings tend to be comfortably predicta-
ble. Disproportionate joy accompanies the occasional visual
surprise, a moment of bright colour or unexpected pigment
bleed. Increasingly, Egan has begun to allow for an element
of chance in his carefully controlled dialogue, but, for now,
it does little more than point to its rarity in his work.
As the feeling of repetition grows at the Kerlin, it's
confirmed by the downstairs extension of the show into the
gallery’s administrative office. Four canvases: a red, a grey,
a larger yellow and another grey with a surprise turquoise
square. The turquoise pleases as a final, unexpected gesture,
but on reflection seems to highlight once again the essential
parity of what has gone before.
Egan himself sometimes gives the works inherently
descriptive, colour-related titles such as Yellow with Black
or Crescent Red: but more often they are named for a time or
place: Night Strand. Dark Dawn, Atlantic Shore. That
Sandymount horizon and the echo of tidal markings on
ever—shifting sand pervade his work. With a few carefully
chosen gestures he makes quiet puzzles, immaculately
finished reflections on the tension between nature and our
increasingly technologically controlled lives.
These paintings are fashionably minimal, they are organic
in tone and texture and there’s one to suit every mood;
as a result they are undeniably popular. But because this
work is so incontrovertibly of its time, it’s only fair to
wonder whether it will stand the test of time. His champions
say the paintings keep on giving and reveal new depths with
each passing year. Those half moons, for example —- some-
times like fingernail clippings, sometimes like swallows
dancing in the air —— allow the viewer to make up their own
story, to bring their own memories to the frame.
Egan's paintings do tell a quiet story of their own,
bringing with them elements of his own life journey, his
move away from the conflict of the north and its Troubles,
and his ultimate escape to Dublin, to a place on the beach
with an open vista to the sky and sea.
He makes paintings that make people feel good. There’s
no pain or anger to be found in their depths, no angst, no
political message, no controversy. That his canvases operate
a little like comfort food for the eyes goes a long way
towards explaining Egan’s enduring success. It also makes
an exhibition of his new paintings peculiarly suitable for this
time of year. Red Dawn, for instance, is a painting so deeply
rosy and warm that it’s easy to fall in love with the
reassurance it seems to offer.
Although his multilayered mixed-media technique is a
time-consuming one, Egan’s paintings do not appear
laboured, reinforcing the feeling there is nothing difficult or
challenging going on. That’s not to deny the essential chal-
lenge of the creative act, but Egan has found his language
and he speaks it fluently; in any case he makes it look easy.
And there lies both his triumph and his downfall. IJ
border town of Strabane, his outsider status was confirmed
by a teenage determination to pursue
a career in art. He studied in Portsmouth and
London, an Irishman in a not-so-friendly, early-
l970s England. Later, he settled at Sandymount on the edge
of Dublin city, a place where sky meets sea meets sand. He
is at home on the brink, his vision informed by the periph-
eral, and yet Egan produces art that is anything but edgy.
His latest show of abstract paintings at the Kerlin Gallery
holds no surprises. Earthy tones predominate, ground stone
mixed with acrylic paint producing a textured surface, as
though each canvas has been cut from a rough-plastered
wall. It is an approach that has worked well. Egan has
reached a point where no collection of contemporary Irish
art is complete without an example of his work: just one day
after the opening, more than half the paintings were already
sold. But this white space is their natural habitat. Two blush
ruby red, one hums with peachy flesh tones, there is a cheery
yellow or two, and the rest are blues and greys.
To categorise Egan’s paintings solely on the basis of
colour is instinctive, an automatic reaction to the fact that
while overall hue and tone varies between the works, what
actually happens on the canvas seldom does. Egan employs
a deliberately limited visual vocabulary, honed over more
than 25 years to a bare alphabet of curved lines, thin
horizons, half moons and squares.
It is as though he is driven by a desire to bring order to
things, to transform the world around him into a visual
metaphor that is calming, soothing and carefully controlled.
In his latest offerings, much of the effect comes from the
play between two elements: curtailed circles cutting across
blank dominoes of complementary shades like eye-shadow
duos. Groups of squares float in fields of thick, layered
brush strokes; they are poised, ready to glide over and across
one another as though caught mid-movement, like an
impossibly slow-moving computer game of Tetris.
The squares bring to mind Sean Scully, the Irish-born,
American-based artist with whom Egan shares a nature-
inspired palate. Like Scully, his canvases simultaneously
echo two extremes of Irish culture: ancient fields divided
and subdivided, and the blank windows of towering sky-
scrapers. But, although working with a carefully restricted
set of abstract gestures can produce painting that is arresting
and visually and mentally challenging, Egan’s muted
visions are quieter than that; they open a space for cahn con-
templation as opposed to eye-opening revelation.
He works on groups of paintings at the same time,
layering pigment and letting it dry, reiterating his chosen
motifs like a mantra. Because this way of working is
essentially a form of meditation, it should come as no
surprise that the end result is repetitive, that it puts
comforting shape on a world that can be both harsh and
beautiful. In a room full of these paintings, it’s easy to fix on
a favourite, but it’s difficult to escape the feeling that once
you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. '
Egan hit the ground running with his inclusion in the
Rose ’84 exhibition, and he is an undisputed commercial
success. His canvases grace hotel lobbies up and down the
country, his prints and watercolours are beloved of restau-
rant owners. The Kerlin show includes five immaculately
framed watercolours on paper, which fade in the monolithic
physical presence of the acrylics, feeling more like prepara-
tory studies than anything else, and struggling to escape the
unfortunate air of poor man’s Egan.
There is no denying that there is a consistency and
integrity to what Egan does. His is a remarkably singular
vision, but it is also essentially safe, far from radical and,
at times, almost painfully subtle.
His installations, such as the 1996 panels in the atrium of
the National Gallery of Ireland, are easily -mistaken -for
pleasing aspects of the interior design. Despite their delicate
differences, his paintings tend to be comfortably predicta-
ble. Disproportionate joy accompanies the occasional visual
surprise, a moment of bright colour or unexpected pigment
bleed. Increasingly, Egan has begun to allow for an element
of chance in his carefully controlled dialogue, but, for now,
it does little more than point to its rarity in his work.
As the feeling of repetition grows at the Kerlin, it's
confirmed by the downstairs extension of the show into the
gallery’s administrative office. Four canvases: a red, a grey,
a larger yellow and another grey with a surprise turquoise
square. The turquoise pleases as a final, unexpected gesture,
but on reflection seems to highlight once again the essential
parity of what has gone before.
Egan himself sometimes gives the works inherently
descriptive, colour-related titles such as Yellow with Black
or Crescent Red: but more often they are named for a time or
place: Night Strand. Dark Dawn, Atlantic Shore. That
Sandymount horizon and the echo of tidal markings on
ever—shifting sand pervade his work. With a few carefully
chosen gestures he makes quiet puzzles, immaculately
finished reflections on the tension between nature and our
increasingly technologically controlled lives.
These paintings are fashionably minimal, they are organic
in tone and texture and there’s one to suit every mood;
as a result they are undeniably popular. But because this
work is so incontrovertibly of its time, it’s only fair to
wonder whether it will stand the test of time. His champions
say the paintings keep on giving and reveal new depths with
each passing year. Those half moons, for example —- some-
times like fingernail clippings, sometimes like swallows
dancing in the air —— allow the viewer to make up their own
story, to bring their own memories to the frame.
Egan's paintings do tell a quiet story of their own,
bringing with them elements of his own life journey, his
move away from the conflict of the north and its Troubles,
and his ultimate escape to Dublin, to a place on the beach
with an open vista to the sky and sea.
He makes paintings that make people feel good. There’s
no pain or anger to be found in their depths, no angst, no
political message, no controversy. That his canvases operate
a little like comfort food for the eyes goes a long way
towards explaining Egan’s enduring success. It also makes
an exhibition of his new paintings peculiarly suitable for this
time of year. Red Dawn, for instance, is a painting so deeply
rosy and warm that it’s easy to fall in love with the
reassurance it seems to offer.
Although his multilayered mixed-media technique is a
time-consuming one, Egan’s paintings do not appear
laboured, reinforcing the feeling there is nothing difficult or
challenging going on. That’s not to deny the essential chal-
lenge of the creative act, but Egan has found his language
and he speaks it fluently; in any case he makes it look easy.
And there lies both his triumph and his downfall. IJ
