Oh, Holly Farrell… sigh. She is one of my favourite painters, and one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I was at the Toronto Outdoor Art Show last summer, and was lucky enough to have a chance to chat with her, and see her lovely work in person. I’ve written about her vintage, photo-real oil paintings several times, and I have absolutely no doubt that I will again. Her work is very quiet and sweet, however, the paintings that she’s jealous of are definitely not…
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I am jealous of Michael Harrington
When I first saw Michael Harrington‘s work I felt pretty glum – definitely a ‘why hadn’t I thought of that’ situation… I recognized the things he painted, remembered the people he portrayed and felt the colours he smeared across his canvases. He took scenes from my life (ok, not actually my life, but close to what I knew growing up) and put them eerily to canvas. His work is creepy, dangerous and funny. His work is very Catholic – might be he is – there is a religiosity imbued in his scenes, they remind me of the stained glass windows that would line the church aisles of my childhood (before I quit Church). These windows would typically depict scenes of life, death and hope – mainly stories from the Bible – they were there to teach us all lessons. I can’t help but feel that lessons go unlearned in Harrington’s scenarios. It seems something bad is just waiting to happen.
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Shudder. Yep, I don’t think those ‘cowboys’ are up to any good at all. Thanks so much for visiting Holly!
Haha! These are great 🙂 The man standing in a boat (with his red tie blowing in the breeze) is having some kind of revelation…and the rolly polly man floating in his pool is delightfully obscene!
yeah, i’m a little concerned about more than one of those scenarios!
Definitely, definitely, definitely…to see in person is to reveal so much more…he is definitely getting bigger in his paintings…and it still is evocative as some of the little gems he has produced earlier.
They do pull you in some sort of revealing of a unassumed other (yes unassumed is not a word…but it feels right for this description)…or of throwing your car headlights up on the wall of the dark and for a moment showing something totally overlooking …and maybe less likely to see otherwise…than in this moment…and its ensuing memory of relevance…
(as a note of his use of colour…hold your hand up to see or to cover the spots of intense colour…and see what happens….almost a sense of oblivion a priori …where did that come from?)
(footnote…who says you have to live in Toronto (I love Tranna-was born and went to two Universities and had my first sexual encounter there…teh he he !) to make great art.)An Ottawa lad.
holly mentioned that in her email to me… amazing, but even better in person!
P.S. …unmmmm…he is painting on bigger canvas’s…not he himself is getting bigger within his paintings……gawd…proofread…sheesssssh!
Wonderful paintings…love all of them. And I love your blog–a fine curation to be extremely jealous of…
yep, they’re fantastic!… and thank you : )