HELEN COMERFORD: ENCAUSTIC PAINTINGS - June 4 - July 16, 2005

 

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Irish artist Helen Comerford's Encaustic Paintings are exhibited at Oriel Queens Hall Gallery from Saturday 4 June until 16 July. Unusually, there will not be an official 'opening' for this exhibition, but Helen will be giving a talk on her work at the 'closing' - at 2pm on Saturday 16 July.

'Hidden in our everyday language are the most profound truths, truths that have been known and forgotten over millenia. For instance, it is well known that in most European languages there is a direct connection between the names used for the days of the week and the seven planets.

Saturn - Saturday [De Satern], Sun - Sunday, Moon - Monday [De Luain, Lundy], Mars - Tuesday [Mardi, De Mart], Mercury - Wednesday [Mercredi], Jupiter - Thursday [from the Norse God Thor, Jupiter], Venus - Friday [from the Norse God Freiya, also Venus].'

moon - monday [detail] | moon - monday [detail]

moon - monday [detail] | mars - tuesday

mars - tuesday [detail] | mars - tuesday [detail]

venus - friday | venus - friday

'The Greeks, the Romans, the Nordic Peoples, Celts etc., all had different names for these Deities, but in essence they are the same entities, having the same charcteristics. The comparative study of the legends and sagas of these peoples has been well documented.

During a period of this research, I became intrigued with the concreteness of the associative material that is all around us in our daily lives - the birches, lightly swaying outside my bedroom window, governed by Venus, the lead on my roof by Saturn, the gold of my wedding ring by Sun - all bring into everyday living these far-reaching and wonderful connections.

In this series of work I explore how the proscribed set of metals, trees, colours, etc., create not just a particular energy with each other, but an atmosphere that is so differentiated that it becomes ever clearer that there are profound truths hidden in this material.'

Helen Comerford

 

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