Philip Moss, 'Étant donnés', oil on linen, 171 x 181 cm
Philip Moss is one of the most interesting and independent-minded artists working in Ireland today. The critic Cristín Leach has described him as ‘a remarkable realist painter who opts often to avoid that style, or to use it selectively.’ Indeed, Moss describes himself as a conceptual artist who chooses to paint. One of the largest pieces in the debut show at the gallery, ‘Étant Donnés’, was a nod to the father of conceptualism, Marcel Duchamp. Moss’s painting shares a title with Duchamp's last major artwork, a tableau visible only to a peephole in a door. ‘I think that the most important aspect of any creative process is the idea,’ Moss says. ‘I am rarely excited my conventional painting, I want to see the artist's thought process and evidence of a struggle.’
Duchamp aside, Moss’s influences are as varied as Velazquez to Marlene Dumas. However, the London school of painting has also been particularly influential. During the late eighties, he worked with the London art dealer, James Kirkman, and while there met Auerbach, Bacon and Freud. The latter was very generous with his time and advice. Another artist Moss returns to again and again is Philip Guston. He admires Guston's facility and courage in alternating between abstraction and figuration.