COMHGHALL CASEY
    Studies in Still Life
    by James Hanley RHA

    Irish Arts Review
    Autumn 2009 Issue

Visiting another artist’s studio is a great pleasure. Whether clean or messy, chaotic or ordered, or somewhere in between, the personality of the owner is always reflected in their workspace. Comhghall Casey’s studio practice is meticulous. His organisation is such that standing in his space one can clearly see the journey each painting makes, from its component parts (primed linen canvases neatly stacked, dozens of clean brushes marshalled atop a paint-stacked trolley, kidney palette with an arc of freshly squeezed colour and a large easel angled towards the daylight) to its subjects patiently waiting on high-up shelves (a variety of quirky and retro-feeling objects – toy guns and planes, wooden boats and ducks, vintage vases and green bottles, sea buoys, mandolins, teddy bears and a solitary Action Man poised for attack) to the final finished pictures hanging alongside those in progress, around the studio walls.

You can see his world laid bare all around you, and yet the finished works are beautifully crafted, magical, painterly transformations of the said objects that you can touch and examine, compare and hold with your own hands. The total absence of chaos in the studio reflects the singularity of purpose, the steadiness of Comhghall’s particular take, and you come away feeling that you have been in the company of a man totally at ease with himself, his practice and his paintings.

Born in Omagh 33 years ago, Comhghall already has a long list of exhibitions, awards and work in both public and private collections to his name. His two older twin sisters attended art school, encouraging and inspiring their younger brother in turn. The boats he paints were made for him as a child by his father, the Peugeot racer (the life-size subject for his winning 2008 RHA Hennessy Craig Scholarship and still his daily mode of transport to the studio) was a 14th birthday present, despite the schoolboy’s plea for a more fashionable BMX.

Perhaps there’s something in this. Comhghall’s painting doesn’t deliberately eschew fashion and obvious current trends in contemporary painting. In a world where it seems the artist most imitated is the Belgian Luc Tuymans with his signature questioning of the devalued nature of subject matter, this artist refreshingly still finds formal and intrinsic value in his chosen objects, producing paintings that are both deadpan and nostalgic without the whiff of sentimentality.

Comhghall Casey is primarily a still-life painter. Alongside the aforementioned objects, fish, fruit, meat, vegetables, plants and stones all take centre stage in his generally small to medium sized canvases. Each yearly body of work is usually accompanied by a self-portrait, 15 now, more or less, each more beautifully painted than the last in the most subtle of tones with any overtones of vanity categorically absent.

His method is to work exclusively from life. That in itself automatically rules out any obfuscation. He wants to be truthful to the reality of his objects. He studies form. There is no implied narrative, no obvious symbolism in his world. Placing his subjects centre stage in a shallow pictorial space allows for the closest scrutiny. The simple low horizon arrived at by a straightforward contrast of tone is his boldest concession to creating a painted spatial reality beyond the verisimilitude of his objects and the subtlest of cast shadows. The evenness of north light gives an unemotional truth, the careful preparatory drawings gridded up to bespoke sizes ensure no compositional errors are made on the canvases. The practice of painting with only available light gives the task at hand an honest beginning, middle and an end. Only minor adjustments are made after the fact when he has had a chance to live with the work. Only then is it a mild tweaking of colour or tone in places. The eye improving nature – a small concession to absolute truth! Dull days are not wasted but rather spent blocking in neutral under-painting and background base colour in anticipation of the concentrated study from life to follow.

Comhghall has breathed new life into a time-honoured genre. His still-lives are totally distinctive and instantly recognisable as his own. This is a rare achievement in a very cluttered world. The familiar, undefinable thread that connects his subjects, his unshowy yet highly sophisticated technique and the remarkable consistency of his work continue to reward. Long may he paint such beautiful and individual pictures.