IGI features
Bloggerooney: an Interview with David Rooney
| Aug, 11, 2007
Award winning illustrator David Rooney has been talking to us about his new projects and the current state of editorial illustration in Ireland.
Spring 2007, after kicking the notion around forever, I finally got back into fine art mode, got new work accepted at the Greenstar Mermaid Open Exhibition in Bray and put on a solo installation piece with related work at the Lift Gallery, Rome.
These pieces titled ‘Klecks’ are inspired by the Rorschach inkblot test, a controversial method of psychological evaluation, developed by Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922). The title Klecks refers to a children’s inkblot game. Klecksographie, which inspired the Rorschach test. His friends called him Klecks which is German for inkblot or splatter.
Haphazard inkblots and ‘steered ink’ were built up from folded A2 sheets to make up the first figure. That finished figure was 8 A2 sheets high, then a whole lot of scanning produced the building blocks for the series. Using these building block sheets and manipulating them on the Mac offers endless possibilities. Curiously, this work brings me back to my pre-scraperboard era at NCAD and the type of work I was doing then, and for three years after that as a fine artist. That NCAD work was inspired by the music of Brian Eno.
In college Eno’s ambient work offered an ideal home for semi abstract images and calling them LP cover illustrations! The fact that he remains so influential is very impressive. Check out his foundation. Chris Haughton told me about it after finding out about my earlier ‘eno-escapades’. In fact I used a version of ‘Help me somebody’ from ‘My life in the bush of Ghosts’ to launch the Lift Gallery project in Rome.
The event comprises of an artist being invited to create a work that will occupy the three person cage lift in a C19th residential building, in my case close to Via Appia Nuova. All the residents and people from the local community got involved brought food, wine and had a go at doing their own Rorschach inkblot test with hilarious results.
Norsk
This time last year we rented a camper and toured around Norway for a couple of weeks. Only six months before we had spent three weeks touring the Hawaiian islands, so I had been primed with what is widely regarded as some of the most phenomenal mountainous landscapes in the world. However, Norway blew me away in a way I can’t quite describe. Hawaii was fantastical…Jurassic Park! But Norway was personal, ominous, foreboding and forlorn. It was familiar in the way that Hawaii was otherworldly. It has to be more than a coincidence that the vikings who colonised Ireland emerged from the Western Fjords of Norway. And so…after chewing on it a bit I began trying to paint ‘that feeling’ that the Norwegian landscape produced in me. These are imagined, half remembered landscapes. I haven’t referenced the countless photographs I took because they didn’t get it. Two or three of the paintings touch on it but the failure rate has been frustratingly high. The worst nights are when I almost have it, only to mess it up with one stupid superfluous stroke. There is no Command ‘Z’
30 years of Hotpress
Hotpress published my first illustration in 1986. And 21 years later I’m still doing regular work for them. Hotpress will print without flinching. It’s been a great experience reflecting and documenting the changes in Irish society and beyond. A privilege to have a vehicle to vent the anger and poke the eye.
As part of the recent 30 year celebration, Hotpress gave me two double spreads that form two collages of work from the 20th Century black and white days of depression (1986~1994) to the digital dawn of post 9/11 21st century Ireland (1999 to present).
I needed to set them against some backdrop that suggested some personal reflection. A good friend, New York based (since 1969!) Irish photographer Alen MacWeeney solved the conundrum with some shots he had taken of me on Long Island which had just arrived in the post. He gave me permission to use them but hasn’t seen the company they keep just yet.
The Times…we work in
Last Easter, after a decade of Fridays come hell or high water, my weekly contributions to the Business section of The Irish Times ended. Rumour had it, as word trickled down from the top, that the reason for the axing was that ..‘They were too Arty, everybody doesn’t get it.’ I just think the new editor of the paper didn’t really like my work, (she would not be alone in this view!) so when the new business section was launched something had to go! No complaints though, I had a really good run of it there and still continue to contribute to the paper regularly enough.
Change is good, I was eager to finally broaden and express myself in ways I havn’t been able to before. I’d been struggling for months to get properly going with the paintings and now I had no excuses…I finally had the time. I’m still enjoying the illustration work I’m doing these days be it for the Folio Society (‘Woodbrook’ published recently), the OECD (the economic think tank based in Paris) or helping Irish International Advertising develop Guinness ads. But now there’s also time for the other black stuff.
It’s difficult, for me at least, to produce personally reflective or contemplative illustrations. The good editorial ones are all born out of anger at some injustice in the world, reflect societal shortcomings or just laugh at the futility of it all. The fine art work however strives to offer some illumination, in the symmetrical patterns of chance marks or in the shared mystery of a shrouded mountain. It’s still the same dark well I draw from, it’s just that now the bucket has to go deeper…. Unfortunately, it usually comes to the surface full of holes.
The state of Illustration
Steve asked me to offer an opinion on the state of illustration. Well, as you can see from the above, I’m in a state of transition that has resulted in a re-examination of my own role as an image maker and artist. Five or ten years ago I was too busy to even contemplate a world outside illustration. Now it’s different….it’s better…not richer monetarily, but better.
The national newspapers and magazines, like any other popular art form, reflect the preoccupations of the society that produced them. So it appears that these days there isn’t the same need or desire for strong editorial illustrations as there might have been in previous decades when our society was wracked with the turmoil and strife. That’s just reflecting the area of illustration that I am interested in and there isn’t much of that nature going on in the national print media here that I know of. If there is I’d love to know.
Celebrity and materialism dominate the culture, so it’s no surprise that bland photography dominates popular print media and that considered illustrative work will be of minority interest. However, that articulate clued in minority provide a rich vein to mine, increasingly through media, that I for one, have been slow to explore. That vein is probably best expressed through the work candyculture/sweettalk so successfully highlight. But the mainstream print media…forget about it…worse it’s getting both in appearance and content.
On the other hand, art seems to flourish and the fact that no obvious movement dominates, offers great opportunities for an illustrator’s creative talent. So long as they don’t simply rehash illustrations and just call it ‘art’. I’m of the opinion that due deference has to be paid to the elaborate rules of engagement in the world of art, failure to respect this complexity and you’re in danger of entering into real dodgey territory…that landscape is littered with such casualties, some blissfully unaware of their predicament. Of course, who’s to say, I may well be on the road to becoming such a casualty myself. That’s the predicament of moving from the colaborative comfort of an illustration commission to the stark expression of ‘I am an artist, this is my work’.
Events
I’ll be participating at Sweetness & Light, Candy’s Electric picnic event. I’ll be doing a presentation on the Friday at 7.50pm , details will be announced shortly at candycollective.com Also planning to produce work for another exhibition event at the Electric Picnic titled The Spoken Word curated by Valerie Walsh.
