Fields of War
Contemporary Approaches to Painting WW1
Exhibition of paintings by Artists Info artist Paul Woods
Tipperary Excel Arts Centre
On Now until 1stApril
Warfare and conflict are the predominant themes in the work of the artist Paul Woods. He believes that events of the past, though often unresolved or misrepresented, have a great influence on our understanding of society and community now. The exhibition follows the trail of the main battles fought on the Western Front, including the Marne, the Somme, Ypres and Verdun, taking a bird’s eye view of the pummelled landscape. The paintings themselves are depicted in an abstract expressionist style, which bonds well with the original sourced archival photographic imagery. Many of the photographic images sourced for the painting process come from aerial photography and topographical views of the landscape in war. These images often have an inherent surreal and abstract visual quality. The photographs from WW1 capture powerfully the iconic images of the soldier in his war torn landscape, therefore the figure in the landscape is an important and integral part of the visual imagery of many of the exhibited paintings.
Biographical Note:
Paul Woods is an Irish artist who graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design. He has exhibited in Ireland, America and Poland. His artwork up to date is a visual compendium and evaluation of the tragedy of life lost in warfare, in times when global conflict and economic strife are paramount issues. He paints about personal, collective and universal histories. His work is about the past and memory, and war – or, to use Wilfred Owen's phrase, "the pity of war" – a theme to which he continually returns. Often on a large scale, Paul’s artworks combine painting and photographic techniques to produce multi-layered images. Through his work Paul intends to stimulate a dialogue on the role of art in the process of familiarizing and contextualizing history and its cyclical nature. Paul has travelled and researched extensively on the subject matter of war and conflict, from battlefields in Europe, Asia and North America, Auschwitz in Poland to the Kwai River in Thailand.
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