Noël O'Callaghan
Noël O´Callaghan
The West Cork Bestiary - a Book of Birds and Beasts
20 August to 26 October 2024
Open Studio Tuesday and Saturday
In The West Cork Bestiary, or Book of Beasts, I will use paintings made directly from the live animals of the area, both wild and domesticated, and link each one with a text – a song, poem, legend or anecdote about that particular bird or beast. I will further research our relationship with animals and how we use them to define ourselves in both negative and positive ways referencing, among others, the writings of Rosa Luxemburg. “Sometimes it seems to me that I am not really a human being at all but like a bird or a beast in human form”.
I want to engage with the animals of West Cork by drawing and painting them. I also am interested in their individual and collective histories which will be gathered from their owners or from folklore or other writings. I will also look at the symbolic value of some animals in a wider European and Global context referencing, among others, the writings of Rosa Luxemburg.
Animals have always held special place in my practice in both painting, drawing and public art interventions such as Pet Parade and Hunde Salon. I am interested in their presence, energy and mass. When painting them, I reduce the form and detail as far as I can while retaining the recognisability. However the creature should not become a decorative cypher, as it sometimes was in Bestiaries, but rather exude a sense of strong, individual presence. Its energy and characteristic movement should be apparent, and the feeling that movement is imminent should be there. The cow may stand ruminating, a hen may suddenly scuttle away, the relaxed, rhythmical movement of the horse or swan - these gestures and repeated rhythems are very important to me. They convey the essence of these creatures much more than a drawing rich in superficial detail which, for me, distracts from the elemental.
During this residency, I want connect with farmers, pet owners, bird watchers, wildlife and animal welfare groups and other people involved with animals to paint their animal and record it’s story. I will open my studio for 2 days of the week so people can bring smaller pets to to be painted in a 30 minute session using watercolour or oil pastel. On other days I will travel to farms and other places to paint larger animals. I will set up my “Dog Salon” at the Skibbereen market and invite people to have their dog drawn for the Beastiary. I will post the results of my research regularly on social media and hope at some point to make a book from my research.
“For as a species we have always defined ourselves in relation to animals and this symbiotic link can be traced from pre-historic cave paintings, medieval bestiaries, the animal portraiture of Stubbs, the Romantic symbolism of Eugene Delacroix and Théodore Géricault down to works by modernists such as Franz Marc and contempories like Jeff coons and Damian Hirst. Recently animal studies have become a whole new field of academic research crossing many diciplines, while Donald Duck and Micky Mouse seem to have long since crossed the species divide” (O’Callaghan and Henderson, from the Pet Parade Catalogue, 2009)
Noël O´Callaghan was born in Cork City and moved to Berlin in the mid-80s and has been actively involved in the cultural life of that city in the areas of music, performance and visual art. She has recently set up a studio in Drimoleague. Noël has had a number of solo shows and been selected for many juried exhibitions and awards. This year her solo show Changlings in Nighttown using mutated life-drawings and referencing the Circe chapter of Ulysses will tour to Berlin as part of the Culture Ireland’s Zeitgeist Irland24 programme.
Instagram @thesketchoftheday
Image: Sunrise with Birds
WCAC acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council and Cork County Council in making these residencies possible.
