Phil Irish

Whistler nocturnes --- amazingly subtle and evocative night scenes, where industrial landscapes become poetic mysteries. I love the surfaces of these paintings, especially that washy blue, applied so fluidly over the darkness, to make the rippling water.

Peter Doig --- I have been really enjoying this monograph. His paintings are so awkward, but so structured. The dizzying surfaces of textures and splashes are very interesting indeed --- the tracery of branches against the tracery of cracks on ice.

Growing from this are some nocturnes of my own.

Phil Irish. A Bridge I Can't Burn Down. Oil on panel, digital print. 200 cm x 110 cm. 2008.

=================================

Here's the first nocturne, that I mentioned. (Perhaps 2 others on the way.)

This piece was the centre-piece of "Intimate," my recent exhibition at Galerie Joyce Yahouda, in Montreal.

I am very excited about the world opened up within this painting: the contrast of surfaces, the delicate lace pattern against the explosive bridge, the dance of illusion and abstraction.

It is based on two bridges, side by side, in Quebec City.

It is emotionally engaging. I believe it speaks of the longing for connection, for building bridges, for love.