Tadgh McGrath opens an exhibition of his work at Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar in Mayo on Saturday 11 June.

He describes his work: “The Way Things is a series of paintings and drawings derived from imagery of environmental protests in Mayo. The paintings are made in shallow relief in wire and plaster, and then painted in oils. The surfaces are treated to create a mixture of textures. These images are influenced by religious art, news photos, video screenshots and so on, as well as direct experience on the site.”

The starting point of these works are images gathered from a variety of sources such as screen grabs from TV News and YouTube videos, indymedia articles, pictures taken by protesters and the gardaí, and photos and drawings made on site. The monumentally large paintings are made deliberately slowly, built up in wire, plaster and paint on wood panels. The colour scheme is predominantly white. Slight tints of purple and yellow mimic the effect of after-images in the retina, but the overall lack of surface colour is designed to remove emotional charge from the pictures.

Use of sources like phone video and surveillance photographs sites this work firmly in contemporary society, while the carefully built up painted surfaces place the work in the world of traditional compositional techniques.The intention in this series is to make paintings that are both gestural and restrained. The wire lines on surfaces cast shadows, and lend a sculptural dimension to the works. Making drawings with wire simplifies the found images and makes the pictures seem graphic and cartoon-like.

The pictures are ambiguous and at the same time very easy to understand.

The paintings also reference religious art, particularly Stations of the Cross pictures. This makes the works act as a series, as well as stand-alone individual things in themselves. These paintings explore memory and contemporary history and seek to analyse and sift through pictorial subjects relating to these concerns.

They are balanced compositions exploring the negative space surrounding these images both pictorially and psychologically.

The opening includes an artist’s talk at 4pm, moderated by Joanna Hopkins. The exhibition continues until 9 July.

The Arts Centre is in Linenhall Street, Castlebar.

Tadhg McGrath is an artist from Dublin. He has exhibited in private and public galleries in Britain and Ireland, and has a Degree in Fine Art from Central St Martins in London and a Masters from the The National College of Art and Design in Dublin, where he occasionally teaches.