Speech by Sabina Higgins at the Launch of Anne Madden’s new Exhibition; Colours of the Wind – Ariadne’s Thread.
Hugh Lane Gallery, 31st May 2017
It is a great pleasure to be here this evening to launch this beautifully entitled exhibition – Colours of the Wind – Ariadne’s Thread.
A new exhibition by Anne Madden is always an exciting event on Ireland’s artistic and cultural calendar. Hers is an artistic career stretching back over many decades to when she first began to exhibit paintings inspired by the limestone landscape and kaleidoscopic flora of the Burren in County Clare.
Since then, Anne has become one of Ireland’s most highly regarded painters. She is also an artist whom we are proud to have represent us on the international stage, her work displayed in Irish art museums and modern art collections worldwide.
I remember when I first met Anne in 1996, all of us Irish were grateful to her and Louis le Brocquy to have their assistance and the benefit of the high esteem they were held in internationally when we brought the so successful Imaginer d’Irelandese to Paris to showcase Irish Culture.
I have always loved Anne Maddens work for its celebration of colour. When I think of Anne I think of beautiful amazing blue – I remember so vividly her blue paintings.
This is a wonderful exhibition. The achievement in the creation of the glorious colour in each painting is truly exciting and remarkable. The colour is so vivid, luminous and vibrating. Anne’s paintings give joy and hope and encouragement but also warn of the threats, and the obstacles that must be overcome.
When viewing Anne’s work, we are inspired to think, and reflect on the enigmatic nature of existence and the complexities inherent in the natural order of things.
This is to me essentially about who and what we are, about our involvement in nature and being a conscious part of that nature, the seen and the usually unseen. The visible and the normally invisible. The unseen affects us and has influence over us at all times. The elements are very powerful. The exhibition seems to me to be about making the normally invisible visible to help us to understand and more fully appreciate the wonder and preciousness of nature – of life. It is also about our vulnerability.
The story of Ariadne’s thread is, of course, focussed on a greatly complicated journey of discovery – a journey which reminds us that life is a byzantine adventure, presenting us with multiple choices and decisions as we walk our own individual path in search of meaning and purpose.
It is about consciousness and our task of becoming conscious individually and globally so we find and hold on to that golden thread, that Ariadne found, and letting it help guide us through all the positive and negative developments in our journey through life. The paintings express the usually invisible nature that is our world and makes it available for our perception and understanding. It is made manifest as vibrating and radiating colours. They are beautiful. The vivid colours are of the whole spectrum of light from flowing hot red and oranges to luminous pink and violet. There is also one with pure blinding white light.
In remarkable painting’s such as the Aurora Borealis Anne captures the auras of the emanations of nature as it is undergoing its ephemeral existence. We see the gold thread weave through the plasmas as it flares through the spectrum, through true blue and orange and red and indigo.
I find it exciting that an artist will set out to translate the wind into colour. It entails first of all being able to see the wind and interpret its vibrations and the sensations into the corresponding colour in the light colour spectrum. This is the work of the artist who must also be a spiritual person, a mystic, an alchemist or at least a scientist. Someone who journeys into the unknown and brings back the gold and translates it into treasure that will give off its vibration to all. What a great artist experience when they are in the zone is known only by what they produce.
I seem to remember that in St. Matthew’s gospel – I think it was Jesus asked the preachers “where does the wind come from” and they answered they did not know and he said “if you do not know about the things you can see how can you speak about the things you cannot see”.
I think the golden thread of Ariadne, weaving its way across the canvas, curling around and about her, speaking of the need to find our own thread to guide us through that maze of life, suggests it is a thread that will often coil back on itself, enabling us to constantly renew our journey with different perspectives and new visions.
This exhibition is an important one, and an inspiring one, reminding us that art is a powerful vehicle for addressing the anxieties and complexities of our day.
As a society, we can be deeply grateful to artists like Anne, whose lifelong commitment to her art has made, and continues to make, such a profound contribution to our society.
I am delighted, therefore, to have had the opportunity to come here today to be in the presence of these paintings and to pay tribute to Anne, and to officially launch this wonderful and exciting exhibition.
Thank you very much.
