Patrick Collins HRHA (1911-1994) Rock Fisherman, Donegal Oil on board, 61 x 76.2cm (24 x 30'') Signed Exhibited: ''Collectors Eye Exhibition'' Cat. No.2, Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo,...

Patrick Collins HRHA (1911-1994) Rock Fisherman, Donegal Oil on board, 61 x 76.2cm (24 x 30'') Signed Exhibited: ''Collectors Eye Exhibition'' Cat. No.2, Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo, January - February 2004, The Hunt Museum, Limerick, March - April 2004. Literature: ''Collector's Eye'' 2004 Exhibition Catalogue, illustrated p2 Around 1945 Collins became a full-time painter, living in a tower in the grounds of Howth Castle, which became a gathering place for artists and writers, including his friend Aidan Higgins. Close poetic affinity with nature, which underlies all of his work was formed in his earlier years of exploring the bird-filled woods and lakes which appear frequently in his paintings, and are characterized by an exquisite sense of colour, with pale tints of blue, grey or pinks, sensitively applied, sometimes with slight impasto, or thin washes of colour. The atmosphere created is one of extraordinary delicacy, akin to Fragonard. The watery environment represented in 'Rock Fisherman' corresponds with the idea of 'inner space', which interested Collins. Frances Ruane points out that Collins was never interested in a literal representation of a subject. 'He worked more like a poet, condensing, abstracting and interpreting fragments from memory' Collins leaves the interpretation of these paintings very much to the observer, acknowledging that the work of art is created the moment it is seen by the viewer. Therefore, paintings will mean different things to different people, a vagueness or indeterminacy encouraged by the artist, whose deliberate use of blurred or indistinct forms, engulfed or surrounded by a misty atmosphere, is designed to free the artwork from the specific and the everyday. In a sense, these are dream landscapes, or landscapes drawn from memory.

View more View less