Damien Flood
Damien Flood’s paintings stem from an interest in early writings on philosophy, theology, alchemy and the natural sciences. He uses these as starting points to explore the mutability of reality and language. The paintings he creates balance somewhere between landscape and figuration. They are psychological portraits and maps to different worlds. Flood is interested in creating a duality in his imagery, exploring how one image can contain multiple meanings and readings. Most recently Flood has begun making ceramic works in the form of figures and vases. They expand on his interest in how we see and read the world, sometimes in a more direct and humorous way.
A primary concern in Flood’s paintings is how we see and read the world around us. Using a gestural and intuitive line, he creates images that relay his experience of the places he visits and the people he meets. The influences in Flood’s paintings are wide, ranging from collecting oral histories of small coastal towns to research trips to deserts in Dubai and Sharjah. During these periods of research, he leaves himself open to the experiences that present themselves, allowing one meeting to lead to another.
The people and cultures Flood encounters are only tentatively documented through drawing and audio recordings. In the studio an almost archaeological process occurs, intuitively painting and allowing different themes and motifs to arrive naturally on the canvas. The titles of each work, usually a one-word title, act as a guide for the viewer. They can be read as a key to his thinking behind the work, and the research that brought him there. The titles themselves can often have dual meanings, opening up the reading of the work even further.
Flood’s paintings create a re-imaging of the world by merging the stories, experiences and memories through the medium of paint. Puzzles, mysteries and questions are presented, through a mixing of different languages and viewpoints, to create a place for meditative reflection. The images Flood produces mix the universal and the personal, the grand and the absurd. They try to communicate something that escapes written word; something that is experienced and felt.
Damien is represented by Green On Red Gallery, Ireland and Stephane Simoens, Belgium.
These artworks from the artist (2006) presented by our gallery are a rare opportunity to acquire one of Damien's early artworks prior to his significant shift, not least towards exhibiting ceramics together with his canvases. Recently (November 2022), a four page feature of the artist was published in the Autumn edition of the Irish Arts Review.
