PATRICIA KENNAN

     I work in series, usually landscapes. I paint places that I feel passionately about and try to express that passion in my work. I concentrate on one series at a time until the need to work on that series is as resolved as I can make it or until another subject matter changes my direction and a new series asserts itself and becomes the focus. The Tyrone Guthrie Center has been a refuge, a stimulating workplace where my direction becomes clear and a new series happens. I work from memory and that for me makes the subject more personal, more open to the subconcious. My interest in bringing an atmospheric quality to the work that I use to establish a sense of place.

 

     Ireland is a recurring theme in my work. I spent my childhood there and draw on these memories. Water is another recurring theme and I often paint the ocean or the shore. One landscape series grew out of a residency in Cill Rialaigh, Kerry, Ireland, a restored famine village. The landscape is remote, dramatic and desolate. During the famine Cill Rialaigh was the last glimpse of Ireland for many Irish emigrants. I felt a responsibility to try to put that emotion down on the canvas because I feel landscape holds the history. I spent one October painting in Pouch Cove, Newfoundland and found not only did the people speak with Irish accents and the literature reflected Irish roots, but the landscape, remote, dramatic and desolate, was familiar to me.

 

     Summer 2003 I spent as a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) and became involved with the landscape of trees and forests of Virginia. I intended to work on my Kerry landscapes but it became impossible to stop the trees from creeping into my work. There were nightly blackouts during my time in Virginia. I often walked in the dark woods and I wanted to put that ominous, vulnerable feeling down on paper. The medium I chose for this series was charcoal and ink. While the VCCA is in a remote part of Virginia, it is lush and green and has ancient, fertile soil, unlike Kerry which is wild and barren - the wind and the ocean allow little to grow on the hills and the rocks. This Virginia work was freeing and invigorating and helped me look at my Irish landscapes with fresh eyes.

 

     April 2005 I went to Costa Rica. Costa Rica stands in sharp contrast to all the places I have been. Gone is the slow dawn and the lingering twilight from Ireland. Everything there is more intense - the day starts with bright light at dawn and ends abruptly at sunset. Time between the rapid start and end of the day seemed to slow down because of the intense heat. The landscape is in a higher color key with the rich terra cotta color of the soil; the bright splashes of cadmium - yellow, red, orange and green - of the flowers, birds and trees. I found myself in rhythm with the light, rising with the sun and going to bed soon after sunset.

 

     Getting away and working in new environments does affect the work. Land, sea and sky and the ephemeral moment when all three take on an abstract quality is the magic I feel myself drawn to because at that moment landscape is pared down to its essence and a sense of place becomes apparent.