|Moments|
Abstract artist Eoin (pronounced Owen) masterfully merges the tactility of paint with the raw form of the brush stroke and injects them into the natural and urban environment as if they had always been there. 'Moments' will be showcasing these techniques through an accomplished series of canvas originals, the scale and texture of the work becoming all-consuming within the basement environment of Dalston's Urban Art gallery BSMT SPACE.
With a career born out of graffiti in the mid 90's, Eoin's move to painting outdoors again in recent years was a natural progression which resulted in him restlessly painting hundreds of murals around the world, engaging communities, organisations, and individuals across continents and countries. This period was crucial to his development as an artist, seeing him burst through the restraints imposed on him by the canvas. He found freedom in painting outdoors and explored exterior surfaces with vigour. More recently Eoin has returned comfortably to the studio, shifting his focus back to developing, understanding and producing his canvas work again.
This collection of works has been created out of his studio on the West Coast of Ireland during the months leading up to October 2017. With this new body of work, the artist focuses largely on attempting to capture a moment of identity through organic movement, natural form and inner light. The electricity of London's streets in contrast with the sublime scenic landscapes of the West of Ireland inspire movement, compositions and environments, to engage with and draw in the viewer.
Exhibition Review
Eoin opened a solo show in London last night, a collection of paintings, pieces on canvas – a painter, definitely a painter, Eoin (pronounced ‘Owen’) is a very painterly painter who currently lives and works in his native Ireland. Yes he does paint on walls, yes he does paint on there on the streets, but he is very much a fine artist, a contemporary painter, he might be showing a new collection of something like twenty-five big canvas pieces in a gallery that celebrates the urban side of art life – Dalston’s BSMT Space gallery is very much a street art space – but you do feel these rather fine paintings would be just as comfortable at one of the signless white-cube galleries of this city, one of those spaces run by those who think things like spray cans a little beneath them. That’s isn’t a slight on BSMT Space, the gallery has put on some impressive shows in the last two years. more a comment on a rather interesting artist who might not be as obvious as the advance publicity and the painting of a piece on the street last week to publicise the show might have you thinking.
Eoin deals in paint, he deals in energetic marks, not too energetic, his marks feel graceful, balletic, he has a refined sense of colour, a beautiful feel for the movement of paint, a little more than just moments (the show is called Moments, not sure that does the work justice).
The walls are a little crowded in here, do need to go back though, these pieces need to be seen again without all the opening night elbows, the clutter and the chatter, there’s something rather satisfying here that needs to be enjoyed in silence. Apparently Eoin painted all twenty Five (was it Twenty five? Something like that) at the same time in his studio, a lot of time spent thinking and just looking at the body of work as one whole as the show came together in his Irish studio. He says he works rather quickly once he’s spent some time thinking and hours and hours just looking, the whole body of work has apparently taken quite a few months to paint and it was always with this show in mind, the pieces being on the wall together in one space.
They probably do need more space to breath, the paintings are crowding each other, he maybe has tried to put too many of the pieces in here, less might have been more, but then the combination of marks, the movement and use of colour, the hint of the graphic next to the slightly feral is something to savour, the bold marks really do work. The blacks were applied first apparently, a collection of black and white canvas pieces then returned to and layered on in wild preciseness, it is about movement, the flow around the canvas, the way his paint flows – in the same way you think about Jackson Pollack working, you can’t help but think about the artistic process and the movement of the painter as these pieces were created, you feel you’d really like to be a fly on his studio wall. there a real feel for the paint here. Need to go back for another look, need to see them spread out in a big high-walled white cube where they can really breathe, no need to go back to that Dalston basement for another look…
