Nature Reserve: Paintings from the Gearagh by Donald Teskey

Stumps of trees around us A drowned forest and a drowned Village called Annahala Lichen on trees, moss on stones, Sparrows nifty commas Dart on the skys white page Sean Dunne Three miles west of Macroom, on the road to Inchigeelagh, you come upon an eerily arresting sight: a large body of water with numerous small islands and what appear to be the remnants of trees protruding from its depths. This is the Gearagh and what you are seeing is the remains of the only post-glacial alluvial forest in Western Europe. The area encompasses the lost village of Annahala and was inhabited until the flooding of the Lee Valley for the Inniscarra dam in the 1950s. Redundant roadways and entrances to houses remain poignant reminders of a vanished community. Its a botanists dream, a treasure chest of flora and fauna. During dry spells you can find mugwort there that will flavour your fish dishes and is said to promote Shamanic journeying. But you dont really need mugwort to get in touch with your spiritual side in this spooky locale. Just take a walk, or better still a kayak, and immerse your self in the wooded labyrinth. This is what Donald Teskey did in the spring of 2008 when he spent six weeks in the area as a guest of the Gearagh Artist Residency Program. This immersion has resulted in a suite of paintings that capture the essence of this unique place. He has now brought these paintings home to the

locale that inspired them. His exhibition Nature Reserve: Paintings from the Gearagh, curated by John P. Quinlan of the Vangard Gallery is showing in the Town Hall Gallery Macroom until the 8th September. The paintings in this show radiate an air of intense existence to use Elizabeth Bowens phrase (quoted by Gerard Smyth in his fine opening address). The abiding feeling, despite the occasional scudding cloud, is one of stillness, of life arrested. This is in marked contrast to the violence and movement in his Atlantic paintings, familiar to many. He works in oil on canvas or acrylic on paper with equal fluency, bringing a quiet inevitability to his compositions. They feel right. There are glorious panoramas of trees and water as in The Lee Valley and Nature Reserve pieces. These give us a sense of the magic of the Gearagh as a whole. In other pieces, such as The Gearagh, Wilderness II (see image), he moves in close and we see evidence of spring in the emerging flowers. There are frequent signs of human intrusion: an abandoned car of venerable vintage, bright glimpses of houses through the trees, a white monumental gable, and a very high road. And everywhere the palpable atmosphere of the place: the play of light on the water, the dark intrusions of the stumps and clumps of vegetation. Their beauty is that of shade, of shadow, of ghost as Frank McGuinness has written elsewhere of Teskeys art. This is a stunningly impressive exhibition you walk around it and breathe in the Gearagh. Teskey is arguably the most successful visual artist in Ireland at present, certainly the most successful painter, and many would add the most talented. This modest and thoughtful man is reluctant to discuss his prices and his commercial success. We do know he achieved the highest prices at the last two RHA Annual Exhibitions. One piece

sold for 50,000 in 2011. He has done well abroad also, knocking the myth that Irish art only sells in Ireland. Many Dublin galleries are now looking outside Ireland for markets but Teskey has exhibited and sold in both the UK and the US for many years. He had his first solo show in the Clink Wharf Gallery in London in 1996 and has since had regular shows in the Art First Gallery just off Oxford Street. Teskey is reluctant to refer to himself as an artist, referring the more prosaic term painter. He likes to quote Brian Burkes take on the matter: Im only an artist some days. Thus acknowledging the fact that the magic occurs from time to time only. It has certainly happened for Teskey this time. With these works from the Gearagh its safe to use the more exalted title. Its where he always wanted to be. At the age of 12 he informed his father, a builder in County Limerick, that he wanted to be an artist. His parents were prescient enough to encourage this interest, buying him oils and brushes and letting him loose in the local landscape. His Palatine ancestors had settled in the Castlematrix area in the early 18th Century. Teskey developed his love of landscape in the environs of Castlematrix, Bruff, and Lough Gur. His father took him on fishing trips, which provided ample painting opportunities for the budding artist and initiated his love affair with water. An encounter with Velasquez via the Encyclopedia Britannica added fuel to this early spark. And the child was father to the man. After going to boarding school in Wesley College, Dublin he moved on to the Limerick College of Art. There he was exposed to the influence of Jack Donovan, who set many an artistic career in motion. Following graduation, he was offered a show in the old Lincoln Gallery in Dublin in 1980, thanks to a gallery artists recommendation. He escaped the traipsing around galleries that is most young artists lot.

 These early works, pencil drawings of Dublin with a surreal twist, sold well. Significantly for Teskey, two fellow artists Mick Cullen and Patrick Hall bought pieces. This confirmed for him that he had chosen the right road. A high-profile group show in the United States followed and he was on his way. The Gearagh wasnt Teskeys first lonely rural retreat. Not for him the costive studio, producing variations on a successful theme. He prefers to go forth and explore, to swagger the nut-strewn road. In 2006 he was invited by the prestigious Albers foundation to be their artist-in-residence at their isolated studios in Bethany, Connecticut. This was no routine residency. It was a singular acknowledgement of his status. As Nicholas Fox Weber, the executive director of the foundation put it: They were looking for the sort of person who can not only survive a degree of aloneness, but who can thrive with it. Anni and Josef Albers loathed the idea of networking and career negotiating that figure too largely in the lives of artists today; they believed, rather, in the pursuit of the higher ideas of art. This surviving and thriving in remote locations seems to be a recurring feature in Teskeys life. The West Coast of Ireland in particular has been rich source of inspiration. He has returned many times to Ballinglen in North Mayo to renew his relationship with the turbulent Atlantic. And he has also spent time Ballinskelligs in Kerry, and on storm-tossed Cape Clear. He moved from moody enclosed urban scenes early in his career to the wildness of waves on the West Coast, from explorations of wooded rural Connecticut to gritty representations of the back lots of Boston. In 2003 he took on snow and rural Vermont. Each new locale is a problem to be solved, a test .

Despite his regular periods of isolation, it would be a mistake to think of Teskey as some kind of artistic anchorite returning periodically from his rural retreats to astound his urban admirers with new visions. He plays an active part in the Irish art scene. He is a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and is involved with its Programme Board. He has been a member of Aosdana since 2006, and was the chairman of the board of Graphic Studio Dublin for two years. The latter role involved steering that storm-tossed vessel into safer waters and was far from being a sinecure. When asked why he would want to commit time to such a fraught endeavour, amidst a very busy painting career, he said that he felt duty-bound to give back to a business that had been so good to him. The artistic courage he shows in constantly changing his milieu also manifests itself in his willingness to explore other creative avenues. He regularly operates in the collaborative world of printmaking with both Graphic Studio Dublin and the Stoney Road press. Many artists avoid intrusions on their artistic vision but Teskey cheerfully embraces the dialogue with the master printer that is the essence of printmaking. He has worked with the poet Sue Hubbard, illustrating a book of her poems, and undertook the daunting challenge of illustrating a limited edition script for a radio play by John Banville (Conversations in the Mountains) a man not shy about aesthetic judgments. In some ways Teskey is a disgrace to his profession. We like a touch of Van Gogh or even Caravaggio in our artists. The trajectory of his career has been smooth and uneventful. There have been no false moves. No early struggle, no creative blocks, no bitter rivalries, no bohemian dress code, no drinking and whoring (although he likes a pint of Guinness), no oerweening attitude. His appearance has a touch of Anthony Hopkins, especially around the eyes, but thats as devilish as it gets.

His favourite tool is the plasterers trowel you suspect some atavistic link with his Palatine forebears. He uses it to transfer swathes of paint onto his canvases, and as a drawing tool. This prosaic implement is an apt metaphor for the hard work that has informed his career. Teskey has used his talent well that magical ability to transmute encounters with transitory nature into timeless art. FINIS