Category Archives: Painting Trips

Residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, County Mayo, Ireland – July 2012

North 01 • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 6″ x 6.5″

I spent a month in Ireland this summer, returning to The Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle, County Mayo for a month of painting. The first trip was amazing, but it was great heading to Ireland this time with a better sense of what was waiting for me there, in terms of possibilities for painting, and a sense I wanted to accomplish. I still worked fairly small on many of these, but plan to use these to develop some larger work as well.

North 02 • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 5.75″ x 6.5″

 

North 04 • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 6″ x 6.5″

 

Pasture Wall • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 20″ x 13″

 

Tree Line • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 20″ x 6.25″

 

 

Atlantic Storm 01 • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 9″ x 9″

Lead • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 9″ x 9″

Last Light • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 9″ x 9″

Fading Light • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 9″ x 9″

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Wave • Joe Forkan 2012, oil on ragcote paper, 11.75? x 13.5?

 

This Land, This Sea – Etherton Gallery – SHOW EXTENDED until June 9th.

I’m pleased to announce that This Land, This Sea, a three person exhibition of paintings and photography opens this week at Etherton Gallery, in Tucson, AZ. The paintings will be on view from March 20th – May 26, 2012.

The exhibit will include paintings by Nancy Tokar Miller and photography by Lisa M. Robinson. I am exhibiting paintings made during my residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland in the summer of 2010.

An opening reception is scheduled for this coming Saturday, March 24 from 7 pm to 10 pm at the gallery.

More information on the exhibit at Etherton Gallery can be found here.

More information about the paintings can be found on my blog here.

The Salton Sea and Mecca Hills

Bombay Beach, Salton Sea • Joe Forkan 2010 Oil on Panel 10" x 10"

Last week I made a trip out to the Salton Sea with painters Andrew DicksonEric MerrellYu Ji, and Larry Groff for 4 days of painting. I had never been there before, and didn’t really know much about it. The over-salinated inland sea is situated a couple of hundred feet below sea level, directly over the the San Andreas Fault, and a bit south of Joshua Tree National Park.

We stayed in the tiny town of North Shore, and painted along the edge of the sea, and in the canyons in nearby Mecca Hills. It was a challenging environment to paint.

Bombay Beach is a desolate little spot out of some post-apocalyptic vision. The beach is littered with dead fish, (victims of the increasingly salty water), that are largely left uneaten by the migrating birds. The lumpy, salt encrusted remains of building foundations jut out of the ground, punctuated occasionally by decimated trailers and piles of debris that were once trailers or shacks, now long abandoned. In midday, harsh sunlight washes all the color out of the environment save for the extremes of gray-yellow highlights and deep, dead purple shadows.

Box Canyon, Mecca Hills • Joe Forkan 2010 Oil on Canvas 12" x 12"

Towards sunset the desert really lights up. Long cast shadows of rich blue and purple cut across sand lit orange underneath skies washed with pinks and pale greens.

In Box Canyon, where we painted a few mornings, you could see the color quickly drain out of the environment as the sun climbed the hills. I am used to similar dynamics of color from my years in Tucson, but the extremes and speed of the changes in the gray hills were remarkable.

In Ireland this summer, I slowly weeded out the stronger colors (Cadmiums, Phthalos, and Dioxazine Purple) from my palette, and the color relationships in the paintings seemed to make more sense in that environment of rich dark greens, dark blues and gray red-violets, but it was clear very quickly that the harsh, extreme light of the Salton Sea demanded a much more chromatic palette and a more aggressive approach.

The weekend was also great for conversations about art and painting, (and the best Mexican food I’ve ever had in California – Plaza Garibaldi Restaurant, in Mecca).

Dry River Bed, Box Canyon, Mecca Hills • Joe Forkan 2010 Oil on Panel 14" x 10"