My name is Tadg, pronounced Tiegh.
Born in Dublin Ireland, recipient of a fairly unconventional nomadic upbringing. I developed an insatiable hunger for knowledge, my father referring to me as the Why Boy, due to my endless questions, resulting in a healthy scepticism regarding received wisdom, authority, religious political and hierarchical systems. Proof was all around me that my elders were not necessarily my betters.
I have always had a love and affiliation with visual communication, as a boy asserting " You don't read the writing, you read the pictures".
I have always maintained that visual language is my first language. As a young adult I found the disappointment in the human condition devastating.
I desire a humanity described through equality, decency, tenderness and love. A relationship of altruism and reciprocity not parasite and host.
In truth I think my work was motivated by a need to become an active agent of thought. To not be a spectator.
Art can have a purpose beyond the cathartic, illustrative, decorative or as has been promoted recently, the self referential spectacle. My aspiration is to communicate in an increasingly universal visual language to go beyond cultural boundaries to a deeper human level. The audience I wish to reach is not the elite of the art world but the breadth of humanity. I see visual language as the least corruptible and most universal vehicle of expression available to me.
Drawing, to explore thought, to clarify and discover, I want to be able to draw that which I don't already know. Over the years I have developed methods to help free the mind and think without prejudice.
I work at scale to give me room to explore and include the body's natural maths and rhythm to allow an instinctive intuition to free up and open the realm of possibility, to gain perspective.
When working I have no preconceived ideas or preliminary sketches.
I begin following my instinct, seduced by line, marks, texture, shapes which evolve from free drawing. Through this process a theme or subject begins to unfold, in turn suggesting the next phase of layering, Areas may change radically, removing or changing sometimes even heavily worked and developed forms. Layering, changing, consolidating until I run out of the need to alter or add to any element of the drawing or painting. Finally I re-relate the work, highlight, lowlight, colour reflection, perspective, then step out of the image. The end.
Sometimes I use working titles to help me stay focused on the most interesting driving forces that are emerging from the drawing process, these titles rarely remain as I see them as an aid but not a restriction to the potential outcome.
I try to work with the simplest materials. On paper using charcoal, pencil and raw pigment. On canvas using raw pigment mixing and making my own paint employing experimental techniques I have developed to speed up drying times, to allow me to work continuously layering and building an image in translucent colours, building forms as three dimensional inhabitants of the two dimensional canvas.
My aim (a train of thought made flesh), a corollary corporeal.
I attempt an honest and valid pursuit of which you and time are the judge.
I hope you are engaged by my contribution and thank you for your time.
Love, Tadg