Coen Moran
St John's College
CONNECTIONS (THE MAKER)
Painting
Oil on canvas
My body of work is a set of portraits of family members and myself. It explores the similarities and differences between people and how we express ourselves in our role as an artist or creator. My work represents the connection between our personalities, our craft and our passion for that craft. What we do for enjoyment and what we do to survive are defining parts of our identities and how we are viewed by others. My overall intent is for the audience to be able to gain a sense of each distinct personality and character from these four portraits.
Marker's Commentary
The figurative painting series depicts a range of human interactions and quiet observations of people going about daily activities with an intensity of focus in their act of creation. Each painting presents a partial narrative and a moment frozen in time. A single figure is represented in each, inhabiting a private, internal space as they paint, apply make-up or sit. The character of each is evoked through their attention to the activity they are engaged with, their clothing and expression. The paintings depict seemingly unrelated actions: the student in the classroom developing his painting with concentrated attention, the young woman, painted in profile, applying her makeup with care, the woman, catching a quiet moment in the garden with her basket on her lap and the muralist, outdoors, painting a pair of birds with devotion and attention to detail. Yet there is a sense of familiarity in each ‘snapshot’, with the characters being thoroughly relatable. Colour is sensuous, vibrant and evocative and primary and secondary colours dominate; blue, red, green and yellow flood each panel from left to right. Lively colour relationships hum within each work. The immediacy of the brushstrokes works in synergy with the depiction of the genre scene and there is aptness in the way this conveys the narrative, grounded in the everyday. The unremarkable moments capture character with both empathy and understanding. The specific portrait is able to represent the archetypal and universal, encapsulating intimate memories of a time and place. Determination and strength are made visible through the self-possessed expressions and quiet actions. With skill, this body of work pulls us in to each person’s story and bids us look and in so doing the paintings humanise us to the lives of everyday people.