Paddy McCann

WORKS FROM THIS ARTIST INTERVIEWS WITH THIS ARTIST

​Paddy McCann was born in Cladai, County Armagh 1963, studied BA Fine Art at University of Ulster from 1985 – 1988 and received his MA in painting from the same University in 1989. He has participated in numerous curated and theme-based exhibitions and held one person exhibitions in Ireland and internationally.

A major exhibition of recent paintings ‘Black Quarter’, was held at the MAC Belfast Aug – October 2015.

He is an Associate Lecturer in painting at Ulster University.

The paintings deal with observations / experiences that have gone before, the elements that they contain – figures, shoes, tape cassettes, pillows, windows, bridges and notions of landscape/cityscape are receptacles of memory. I don’t wish the works to be easily defined but rather chase the poetic and to arrive there by letting the eye, the hand and the heart to work together to do what feels right.

Working mainly through drawing and painting, issues of the interior world (psychological, emotional, memory) and exterior world are central to my practice.

The paintings are layered where content, risk, imagination, time and craftsmanship are vital elements. This occurs within single works or set up within the framework of a long variable series or condensed within the triptych or diptych format. This correlates to central concerns / research into personal and communal loss and its impact beyond and into the expanded field of its geographic, historic, political and cultural landscape.

Recent work is directed towards interdisciplinary points of departure where paintings are combined with sculptural elements to allow for new materials, relationships and processes.

Some of the work is very specific in dealing with particular incidences that occurred as part of the conflict.