Clúdach: Cover

Cover.

diana copperwhite, moonstruck, 2020 acrylic and watercolor

Image used with the artist’s permission.

Throughout human existence, artists and writers have sought to represent reality.

Debates regarding which artistic medium best describes the world around us have existed for centuries. Renaissance “paragone” theories contested the merits of, and hierarchies within, the arts, among painting, sculpture, and poetry, in an effort to establish which of them most convincingly embodied the natural world. Drawing on Neoplatonic theory, the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian artist sought to depict nature in its truest sense—meaning in its ideal form. Nature in art was rationally and morally ordered, to reflect the omnipotence of the God that made it. Painters argued that through technical skill and intellectual rigor, their medium provided a compelling window through which to see creation. The fact that color and texture were unique to painting meant it was unparalleled in its ambitions.

With the emergence of modernist movements in the nineteenth century and with subsequent twentieth-century developments, painters were no longer tied to the conventions of contrived realism; rather, a subjective and intuitive approach to subject matter was adopted. Academic practice and traditional methods were modified or rejected to serve the needs of self-expression. Nature, and experiences of it, provided points of reference or departure; physical and metaphysical “realties” were given equal weight. Autographic mark-making, natural and unnatural color choice, idiosyncratic symbols and pictographs, representation and non-representation occupy the painted compositions of modern and contemporary art. Today’s artist continues in the role of seeker and revealer; they present an aperture through which they may affirm, challenge, or reinvigorate perceptions of reality for the viewer.

Painters working in the postmodernist era bring a knowingness to their work. While they are part of a venerable tradition of making—many electing to use materials and methods associated with history—they are not deferential to the theories of the past. And while formalist concerns may be shared, they do not ascribe to modernism’s didactic, utopian agendas. Contemporary painters embrace the fact that their art may be made and read in many ways. Meaning is not collectively shared across society; it is varied, complex, and inconsistent.

As a dedicated painter, Limerick-born Diana Copperwhite navigates her own path in approaching reality. She does not claim to be an apologist or advocate for the medium. However, her works are just that: they are monumental in their ambition; the evidence of their making is forceful and undeniable. She admits that her art cannot be detached from its process and her work is an extension of her personality.

Moonstruck is part of a recent series of images on paper developed in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Copperwhite is best known for painting on canvas; these works represent a departure for her. While produced on a less permanent support, they are not to be viewed as studies for larger works; they are autonomous and a reflection of her state of mind at a particular moment in time. Paper is less robust, less forgiving than canvas. It is a matrix that must be negotiated; the surface must be considered as part of the process. Nevertheless, that does not deter Copperwhite from testing and pushing its limitations. The roller and the scraper are used alongside the painter’s brush.

During this period of uncertainty and disorder in society, Copperwhite has taken the time to look closely at her surroundings, to think, to imagine, and to remember. The presence of the virus made her slow down; it brought her home. As she investigates her local environment, her process includes taking photographs. However, these are not used as a compositional tool but rather are an attempt to capture the fleeting. As an artist she is drawn to the half-seen, the half-heard—the liminality between the real and the unreal—which will conversely “become” through physical expression in paint. The surfaces of a Copperwhite painting represent a balance between the emphatically rendered and the delicately inferred.

Copperwhite describes her process of layering, building, scraping, and distilling...