As a painter, Molloy's key concern is to investigate the relevance of painting in a digitally-mediated world. The work is constructed via a process of experimenting with a series of traditional baroque-inspired themes, spliced together with over-painted elements associated with digital-based imagery. The traditional elements have been appropriated from sources within the Dutch, Spanish, Flemish and Italian baroque painting canon, combined and juxtaposed to create a series of capriccio-type fantasy scenes and miniature tondo portraits. The digital elements overlaying the traditional subject matter have been inspired by a variety of sources (C.G.I., games, image manipulation software, glitch-art, etc.). Molloy refers to these concealing elements as pentimenti.
The use of terms like 'pentimenti' refers to the underlying mark-making, choices and corrections that the painter would make during the composition of the work, usually discovered by restorers, and now, even more accurately, through the technology of reflectography. 'Pentimenti' also reveal when the painter's original work has been later over-painted, often in response to socio-political, moral or fashion imperatives or simply through complacent restoration. Thus the definitive (often canonical) work reveals itself as something which is not a solid given, but the outcome of a fluid, changing dynamic. In today's world, there is also a certain impermanence to digital images they can be easily deleted, they succumb to degradation over time, they can be altered and manipulated as we wish. This shared impermanence of both mediums old and contemporary is key to Molloy's current area of research.
The initial access to most of the reference material explored in the paintings is found via reference books, online galleries and internet databases. With the assistance of awards from both the Thomas Dammann Jr. Memorial Trust and Fingal C.C. Molloy was offered the opportunity to travel to see examples of key works from the baroque painting canon in situ in Amsterdam, Madrid, New York and Florence. Examining the works up close allowed the artist to make mental comparisons between the original works and the digital versions a process of analysis, deconstruction and de-composition which was then mapped on to the actual making of the artist's current body of work.
In the sometimes ludicrous extremes of the high baroque (e.g., Pietro da Cortona), viewers were offered an illusion of total immersion in a painted world echoing the immersive experience presented at any moment today through a variety of digital portals. In these works, Molloy seeks to create 'Neo-Pentimenti' deliberate corrections, alterations, interventions and degradings/decompositions of the paintings underneath. By using the over-painted elements to disturb the three-dimensional painterly illusion created by the brush-stroke, he introduces visual interventions which both repel and attract the viewer's attention, creating a new aesthetic to subvert the often didactic and singular reading that traditional figurative painting presents.
Artist's Statement
"The lost estate refers to the loss of space and identity in an over-mediated world.
The loss of nature under concrete, steel and plastic, the loss of sky, of light.
It is also a proposition to prepare for my own return to nature, as I am destined to do, death I mean.
What is my true nature?
The lost estate of mind, the loss of depth, the loss of perspective.
The traces of the lost estate, a place where everyone knew their place, yes, a hierarchy of sorts, but does nature have a hierarchy?
The lost estate of youth, prescient in this current pandemic, the loss of freedom to touch, to hold.
The lost estate of my gait, a good walk spoiled, the path/the road that does not rise for me any more, subject to the dial, the green light, the red light, the green light, the red light, I'm running out of colours, I see the light, out of time, lost, time gentlemen please.
The lost journey, are we there yet?, are we there yet? where are we now?, it's a mystery a grand tour.
Lost in our insular world of cars and screens that we've created for ourselves, noli me tangere for servers I am.
The loss of our senses both physical and psychic, the metaphysical.
The lost estate of rationale over instinct.
The lost estate of our bodies, preened, shorn, torn and toned to make us the objects of desire.
The lost estate of freedom to roam, naked if we choose, without the constant watcher, the constant documentation of our private moments whether self-imposed or by external agency.
The AI listening and watching devices recording our every breath and second guessing our motives, our thoughts, a digital echo chamber. Have everything now, while stocks last.
The Glebe MCMXXI, our history sir, a mystery sir, it wasn't us it was them sir
Steal I a horse, let nature take its course
The cosmic dancers, necromancers, a shower of chancers
My Kingdom, for your kingdom, united? A one-horse power in
their finest hour
The Jealous walls, the property pages, the marble halls, our rock of ages
She gave birth to the Western world, a bastard of a boy, a play on worlds
The Mayfield, two fellas peggin' stones at one another, you should've been there, out of their heads, they saw ghosts, their true natures
The Witch of Endor, a note from the vendor: did not find any
threats since you last logged in
The Alchemist has lost his prescription, for want of a better encryption
The Grand tour, magical mystery, Ctrl H, delete history
Freiwild, for the taking, les petit morts, for the faking, all par for the course"
Seán Molloy, Dublin, December 2020
