I've known Brian Palm as a musician of note, steeped the blues with the Mary Stokes Band, but his original reason to come to Ireland was for a degree in Visual Art. He has told the stories of what he saw around him and has spent many years bringing these images to life in a variety of styles.
We sat down to talk about his visual art, his history of the city he's called home for decades and the stories he's told in his work.
As you might imagine, we (well, mostly me) rambled about his own story and I got to see the other side of the artist, who has used his striking images to reflect his view of his adopted city. He has a new exhibition too!
VERNACULAR, an exhibition of new work by Brian Palm, opens in the Duke Street Gallery, Dublin, on September 20th.
It will be Palm’s sixth solo exhibition in the gallery since 2014. This exhibition is composed of mixed media works created in Brian Palm’s distinctive collage and paint technique. Using photos the artist made in Dublin as a young art student, insignificant moments in the life of a city on the verge of massive disruption and change are depicted with affection, humour and empathy. The City's inhabitants continue with their lives amidst the upheaval around them; they play, they work, they continue doing mundane chores. Brian Palm’s original black and white photographs have attained an archival significance simply by the passage of time. These photos have provided the artist with a depth of visual information to use throughout his career. Many of the images of people and places Palm photographed in his wanderings have become a form of highly personal vocabulary for him as an artist. He has created a body of uniquely original photos which have become a vernacular archive in itself.
Several characters populate the artist’s work repeatedly in this exhibition, moving through the work like a cast of actors on a stage. A girl running with crisps appears then reappears, in a different location, at a different time of day, or in a different season. She remains frozen in time, but the World around her continues to evolve as time inevitably moves forward. Clutching her precious cargo, she hurriedly runs past derelict houses or along deserted streets, trying to escape a sudden shower, or perhaps a coming storm.
Elsewhere, a solitary old man walks the streets in silence, he is in the far distance then suddenly he is closer, always lost in thought. He is oblivious to those he shares the streets with, he is a prisoner of his own persistent memories.
A variety of children play in the streets, addressing the viewer directly and with trust; joy is clearly visible on their faces as they are photographed. Women pause in their work to be photographed, amused by the unusual relief punctuating their routine.
These are bittersweet memories from a bygone era, richly coloured with oil paint and varnish to create evocative, atmospheric pictures. They evoke the smells, feeling and sounds of the streets in Dublin many years ago on a Summer evening or as Autumn closes in.
The repetition of certain architectural motifs echoes the repetitive use of significant figures. It reiterates the message, and refers to the repetitive nature of the building process itself. The same non-descript spot is intentionally depicted repeatedly, at different times of day, or with different characters doing different things. This work is about the inhabitants of the quiet, innocuous places hidden away from the mainstream, where people took shortcuts and kids played outdoors until late in the evening.
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