Artist who dreams of a cherrypicker

"It was a case of trying to hold the umbrella, the easel and paint ... I needed a third hand."

When local artist Michael Rowley went out on the Curragh to do the first painting for his new exhibition in the Good Food Gallery in Kilcullen, 'From the Curragh to the Burren', it was a too-typical Irish mid-summer day, writes Brian Byrne.

"It was overcast, windy and wet, and I eventually decided not to put the piece in the show because the results were too miserable. I titled it 'Typical Irish Summer', which made some sort of sarcastic sense."

Michael, from Brownstown, has been a part-time professional artist since he graduated from art college in 1995. Like many of his kind, he has to teach to supplement his earnings from his art. "I have a young family, have to make a living and pay the bills. And it is much tougher for an artist now than it was before the recession. But I just get on with it and hope that someday my star will shine and I'll be able to work fulltime as an artist."

His particular genre is landscapes, and all his work is done 'live', on location with an easel, which can put him at the mercy of our ever-fickle weather. "Some people work from photographs, others from sketches in the studio. I just like to work directly from what I see."

He tries to finish a piece in the session, however long it takes. Occasionally he'll come back the next day if what he has done isn't to his satisfaction. "I'll rework it in that case, but sometimes it simply isn't working for me and I'll destroy the piece and start again." As he works in oils, the time available to rework a painting is finite before it dries.

Because of how he works, Michael doesn't have very large paintings in his portfolio. Physically lugging a large canvas around on location simply isn't an option, so many of the pieces on display in the the GFG are miniatures. But he wonders sometimes if a big one might be possible.

"As with any artist, I like to work in a range of sizes, and it'd be great if someday I could go out on the Curragh with a big cherry-picker crane and paint on a large canvas from a height. Still, the miniatures are a challenge in their own right."

And he also can find it nice to 'ease' himself into a day's work with a small piece. "Then I can change my position and do something bigger."

Wherever his position is, outside influences other than weather can dictate the speed of his progress. "Irish people will try and connect with you when you're painting, and I can find that distracting. They offer you a narrative, maybe about their cousin who is a great artist. That can get in the way."

Distractions aside, Michael says he has absolutely no idea of the direction a piece will take at the time he sets up his easel. "You're in a certain landscape, and there are certain weather conditions, but you don't know if it's going to be a good painting or a bad one. It can depend on mood, too."

Michael has worked many of his landscapes from the unique background of the Curragh, but some years ago he began painting in The Burren in Co Clare, equally unique. "I think it's good for an artist to move around, to get outside yourself, leave your safe zone."

Each coutry's landscapes have their own 'palettes' of colours and Michael will point to Jack B Yeats and Sean MacSweeney as using colours typical of Ireland. His own pieces are equally recognisable as Irish, implemented in a very strong use of the oils, where even a clear blue sky comes with substantial texture.

All artists are interested in other locations and styles, and Michael has a particular interest at the moment in African art, which he suggests is what the ancient Celts would have done. "It's representational. For instance, a figure of a horse would look like a horse, but wouldn't be anatomically correct. In Europe in the 21st century we have gone much more sophisticated, but maybe in a way that's almost painting by numbers, and perhaps many of the ancient skills are gone?"

And now there's so mich digitisation of art, he wonders if it is almost at the stage where it's just a case of pressing some buttons and a picture will be painted? But he's sanguine enough about the future for 'real' artists. "When photography was invented, they said it would be the death-knell of painting. But that hasn't happened, more than a hundred years on, and I don't think technology will get rid of personal creativity. Like a songwriter, or a writer, for an artist it is their journey through life that makes what they do."

For a painter here as opposed to writer, that can be a more difficult, even frustrating journey. "The Irish have a great literary tradition, from Yeats to Seamus Heaney. But that's not so much the case with painting in Ireland. In France, for instance, a painter is just accepted as an artist. Some of our greatest painters have had to travel to France or elsewhere to make a living."

With prices ranging from €80-€350, 'From The Curragh to The Burren' is continuing in the Good Food Gallery. It's success will help keep an artist at home.



Michael is pictured above with Sue and Paul Carey at the opening of his exhibition.

This article was first published in The Kildare Nationalist.