Painting for me is not about the description of the visible world; it is a means of conveying the inner landscape of the artist’s heart and mind. Images of nature have remained a potent source of inspiration for artists down to the present day.
Lately, I have become fascinated by Chinese paintings from different centuries and their artistic expression has been deeply imprinted with images of the natural world. Viewing Chinese landscape paintings, it is clear that depictions of nature are seldom mere representations of the external world. Rather, they are expressions of the mind and heart of the individual artists. In a similar way in my work I try to connect with the idea of the human being and the landscape it inhabits.
In this way I try to explore the psychological and spiritual places in the landscape around me. My work describes not the actual world but rather an interior realm; they are the product of my imagination and an intuitive merging of numerous sources, including photographs and memories of photographs, fleeting moments, feelings, and moods. I find myself wanting to paint about the human inside nature, or nature as seen by the human mind.
These are transitional places that sit between land and sea, connections much like those moments between dream and reality, life and death. In this way, my style moves between abstraction and representation. To achieve this, I mine countless sources to create composites of places, stitching together fresh, complex, psychological landscapes.
Painting is an alchemical process in a way. It is the magical process of transforming or combining elements into something new. At the beginning of a painting, I might have an idea of what I’m going to paint, but most of the time this is abandoned and replaced with a new idea. Sometimes this can happen many times on the one canvas. I might scrape it off or paint over it. This creates a new surface which for me is as important as the image. Adding to this I make choices of color, form, and gesture, I set abstraction against representation, line against wash, dry against dripping brushwork and texture against smooth. Through these different techniques, landscapes often emerge ghostlike from their surroundings.
I hope my paintings will awaken the imagination of the public to remind them of the beauty of the landscape and their surroundings, with the ongoing threat of climate change worldwide which is a constant. Through this, I aspire that my work will give viewers the chance to tap into their spiritual sides, and I hope my paintings would act as springboards for contemplation that ask us to consider our own hidden worlds.
Dublin-born, Kildare-based artist Derek Fitzpatrick graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 2006. He is represented by The Duke Street Gallery and Trinity Gallery in Dublin, and Barbara Stanley Contemporary Irish Art, London, UK. He recently had solo shows with the Duke Street Gallery. He was also represented by the Glasthule Gallery in Dublin 2017-2018.
Fitzpatrick has exhibited on various occasions in solo and group shows, including the Royal Ulster Academy, Villa Tittoni (Milan), Hallward gallery, Glasthule gallery, Chimera Gallery and various art centres and galleries around Ireland. His work features in public collections including that of OPW, Ardstone Capital, Unicorn Restaurant and Cavan Arts Centre as well as numerous private collections in Ireland, UK, Europe, Thailand and USA.
