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05/06/2005: "Opening Nights" by John Nolan
Recently I staged a solo show in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland. It was a great honour to exhibit at such an historical and prestigious venue and a pleasure to work with the staff.Aside from the actual process of creating a body of work for a solo show, which in itself is a daunting task, after many years of exhibitng in solo and group exhibitions, why does it not become any easier, I ask myself ?
Allow me to expand. Opening night I find is the most stressful experience - for me as an artist, it comes top of the stress table. Spending months, weeks and hours locked away in the studio preparing for the show always seems to pale into insignificance when faced with the prospect of the opening night!
It is a strange feeling, in the sense that , the artist almost becomes one of the exhibits. Why do I feel uncomfortable when surrounded by my work and by genuinely interested people who have taken the time to attend the opening?
The normal apprehensions are experienced : Will anyone be bothered to attend ? : Will I sell any paintings ? But overriding these accepted notions is the fact that I would prefer to be somewhere else entirely, preferably on a different planet, as far away as possible, with my colours, canvas and brushes !
Art is visual language, I believe the paintings should speak for themselves. The less I say about my work, the better. The artist's work should stand independently, without the reassuring presence of the creator. There are some exceptions to this, in the case of an artist being more famous than his or her work,e.g. a celebrity artist. The work cannot exist without the continuous public presence of the artist. Unfortunately this is neccessary as the celebrity, the persona, tends to overshadow the work and in some cases is a neccessity in order to bolster sometimes weak work. I am in the ranks of the ordinary artist, as opposed to the celebrity artist. I am guilty of producing both strong and weak work, and on completing the body of work for an exhibition, merely wishes to move on to preparing for the next show. It's a job. I need to sell my work to survive and this is achieved by applying myself . The process of creating is stressful enough, ranging from infrequent moments of elation to long periods of near depression, desperately seeking inspiration. The end result of the aforementioned should be an exhibition, if the opportunity arises, but also a feeling of being totally drained. This is why I need a new project almost immediately in order to resume searching and allowing the creative force to flow.
Perhaps if we could bottle those inspirational moments in front of the canvas , when for some reason everything falls into place , and put them on show - No, I still wouldnt want to be at the opening !
At the opening nights I always feel very distant from the work because that journey is finished. I have achieved my goal. I am happy with the work, and it's time to move on. I have something more important to explore and if these paintings sell I can buy more colours and canvas for something even better. It seems to me that this feeling has become more palpable in recent years, even during the process of finishing each individual painting and almost anticipating, a sense of visualising the next painting.
I am so honoured to have been selected for various exhibitions but sometimes I wonder - what is really on show, the artist, the creative process or the result of the artistic process ? Maybe all three are on show at once ? It is obvious that deeply unconscious processes produce the art form. We are attempting to convey a state of feeling, operating through the eyes, as opposed to an idea, which would be the domain of langauge. The opening night is always dominated by language, speeches, conversation, ultimately culminating in the questions : " why did you paint this piece, and what were you thinking of while painting it "? I never have the answers, my powers of articulation will not reciprocate, they desert me as quickly and as irretrievably as those lucid, shortlived, silent moments in front of the canvas when the brush stroke falls miraculously into place, and for a millisecond the artistic force allows the artist to make a mark..
