Daniel O'Neill (1920-1974)
All Dressed up and Nowhere to Go
Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 60cm (17.5 x 23.5") Provenance: The Waddington Galleries, Montreal, Canada Daniel O'Neill's paintings often...

Daniel O'Neill (1920-1974)
All Dressed up and Nowhere to Go
Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 60cm (17.5 x 23.5") Provenance: The Waddington Galleries, Montreal, Canada Daniel O'Neill's paintings often contain a degree of enigma. It is for his figures in landscapes that he is best known, and it is the relationship between these two elements that evokes the unanswerable curiosity of the viewer. O'Neill repeatedly painted scenes in which the figures, usually women, seem to be asserting their authority over the landscape, ownership of land being a significant issue in Irish history. Yet there is always a hint of sorrow or isolation in these figures, expressions that cannot be pinned down to a single emotion. In 'All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go' we see s solitary woman, standing with her back to an extensive landscape as many of O'Neill's women do. Dressed in her Sunday best, she has the modest and forlorn look of other O'Neill ladies, however in this case the title, inscribed on the back of the canvas, offers an interpretation of the narrative that remains so elusive in other works. Not only does the title suggest a narrative for the figure, but implies the notion of lost possibilities. The landscape echoes this. Rendered in a palette of blues, greens and yellows, the substance of the scene is indeterminable. It implies both sea and land, and the horizon suggests both mountain and sky in a distant wisp of white. This topographical mingling of elements, coupled with the dappled sunlight that illuminates parts but shuns others, hints at the far off lands that the woman dreams of.  

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