Businessman shows artistic side

Brian Fallon with Sue Carey at the opening of his paintings exhibition in the GFG.

It's a side of local businessman Brian Fallon which most of his customers didn't know about, writes Brian Byrne. That besides running a successful pub and restaurant, he is an artist. And an accomplished one at that.

It all came out in public with the staging of his first ever exhibition, in Paul and Sue Carey's Good Food Gallery. The pieces are all watercolours, and show Brian to have both a really good eye for telling a story in composition and a great deftness of touch with the brushes.

The number of red dots on the opening night were testimony to appreciation of his work. And he recalls that in one case where he didn't sell his paintings, his artistic ability saved him money.

"That was when we were doing up Fallons," he says with a grin. "The interior decorator said I'd need to allow about ten grand for art, so I dusted off the old brushes and did up a couple of paintings that are hanging there now."



Though he never had any formal training apart from doing Art in his Leaving Cert in Newbridge College, Brian considers that he was furtunate to have had the encouragement of one teacher. "That was Fr Henry Flanagan, a true artist in his own right. He was brilliant. I used to love the pottery class particularly, making on little clay figures. He gave us a love of art, and of methods."

Brian's mother painted and from a very early age he 'doodled'. "I found I was able to copy stuff, I was quite a good mimic, but I don't think I had a lot of artistic insights. I used to be able to get a likeness of people, even in pen. In College when I'd be bored I'd do sketches of people, which my friends could always recognise."



The works in the GFG are almost all about people. Portraits of adults, children at the seaside. Where Brian shows his ability to capture and paint mood, both of people and place.

"People have always fascinated me, and the more I paint, the more I get to know people. In the process of putting this exhibition together I found myself staring at people, at things, at skyscapes and trees. It is amazing how painting can give you such an appreciation of other things."

The suggestion from GFG owner Sue Carey that he consider an exhibition kick-started Brian into doing something that he really had always wanted to, but hadn't ever make the time for. "It made me put myself under pressure, and I looked on it as a sort of challenge to myself."

He paints mostly at night, in a room in the attic of his home. It can be something of an escape from the normal matters of work and family, or something to do if he can't sleep, for instance. And it's important that he has the space. "I remember once, before that, I found my little daughter and my niece had been busy painting a little boat in the corner of a painting of lilies I had been working on for a friend!"

Inspiration comes from the people watching he is fond of, often from memories of holidays and family occasions. There are two pieces in the GFG which depict children looking out to sea, done from holiday snapshots. "They are my own children and children of friends, and when I did the pieces they were bought by the other parents."

Like anyone who is busy, finding time for something like painting isn't always easy. "I suppose I just squeeze it in, and instead of watching TV I might go up and work for an hour. But when you get on a roll, you can finish something quite quickly. It's the setup that takes time, getting materials together, getting mentally prepared, getting the sketches right. But once I start painting, I get incredible energy. Sometimes I can't physically pull myself away from it, I want to see how it turns out, and often I could work all night."

The works in the exhibition are intriguing from a method point of view because Brian only used three primary colours in their production. Yet, looking at them, one would think a very varied palette was involved.

"That was the result of a book my Mum bought me years ago, about a Chinese artist who just used the three colours. I was just gobsmacked at the range he could get from them. I kind of blow the colours into each other, use a lot of water. It's called a 'wet on wet' technique. The colours fuse with each other and you get really unusual shapes and colours. I always painted before with oils, and this exhibition is of my first works in watercolours, and I'm really enjoying it."

This piece was originally published on the Kilcullen Page of The Kildare Nationalist.


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