Looking for a birthday card in my collection, I found this -
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| Summer Garden by Breon O'Casey, 1996 |
Simple and satisfying, as is so much of Breon O'Casey's work. And that lovely orange colour really adds the heat of summer. The perfect card, I thought, for someone born in the summer, with a garden in the making.
And yet, I can hardly bear to give it away... So let's look at some other works by this artist.
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| Most popular - what google images puts at the top of the page |
O'Casey turned his back on fashion, says this blogger. "Throughout the 60s and early 70s he was part of the complicated jigsaw puzzle picture that was the St Ives school, but then he cut himself off, getting out in 1975 just as the dealers and art historians were beginning on the forensic process of cataloging, pricing and documenting the scene there."
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| O'Casey's studio; more views here |
Living midway between Penzance and St Ives, " his painting became more assured with certain motifs recurring – the single form on a divided ground and a distinctive double ended anvil shape."
I'm particularly fond of his birds, both painted and sculpted, of which his gallery says:
"Breon’s archetypal birds owe an amused and open debt to the birds in Braque’s paintings. Birds in flight are ideal companions in the spatial explorations that have preoccupied them both. Breon has learnt from Braque’s tactile space – the way in which the space around an object becomes as palpable as the object itself. The dark backgrounds of many of Breon’s new paintings contribute intense luminosity and depth. Their surfaces are sensuous. Breon’s colours have a special richness and harmony, with many different browns, ochres, rusts, reds and greys in particular. Bright accents accompany the more muted and subtle earth colours – including some surprising pinks."
"Breon’s archetypal birds owe an amused and open debt to the birds in Braque’s paintings. Birds in flight are ideal companions in the spatial explorations that have preoccupied them both. Breon has learnt from Braque’s tactile space – the way in which the space around an object becomes as palpable as the object itself. The dark backgrounds of many of Breon’s new paintings contribute intense luminosity and depth. Their surfaces are sensuous. Breon’s colours have a special richness and harmony, with many different browns, ochres, rusts, reds and greys in particular. Bright accents accompany the more muted and subtle earth colours – including some surprising pinks."
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| Winged bird, bronze, 18x23 cm (via) |
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| (via) |
He used bird motifs in jewellery as well:
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| (via) |
O'Casey was born in 1928, the son of playwright Sean O'Casey. He died in 2011; a website of his work is at breon-ocasey.co.uk
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