PAULINE GETS TO ‘HEART OF THE MATTER’
REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF SPOKE TO PAULINE MERRY ABOUT WHAT INSPIRED HER NEW MOULD-BREAKING EXHIBITION
THE COURTHOUSE in Tinahely has never seen anything quite like it. Arklow resident artist Pauline Murray has conceived and presented a show which has pushed her into fresh dimensions. ‘The Heart of the Matter’, which opened to the public on Sunday, takes the form of 15 large canvas panels, each one more than one metre square.
Into this ambitious series she pours the wisdom of her 72 years on earth, fired by concerns for the planet and by the love for her grandchildren, all imbued with a sense of spirituality.
She dedicates the project to the young generation, thankful for the joy they bring her, and the motivation they provide, transforming old age into a wonderful stage of life.
The exhibition, which runs into early December, is accompanied by a selection of works from her half century (and more) of artistic endeavour. The simplicity of the framed pictures on the wall serve in contrast to underline the boldness of the effort which has produced ‘ The Heart of the Matter’ in all its complexity. For most of her life, she has been happy to offer charming views and landscapes, sometimes staying into semi-abstract style, but with content always recognisable.
Her customers at the Oak Henge gallery on the Beech Road have long enjoyed her approach to art and been proud to hang it in their homes. Her students over the years at school in Arklow have been well coached in the essential elements of their craft. Now Pauline has emerged as a more radical force, not afraid to dabble in ‘mixed media’ by adding jigsaw pieces and playing cards to her compositions along with the paint. ‘ The Heart of the Matter’ is more concerned with imagery and ideas than perspective and form…
Born Pauline McDonald, she was brought up at Monamolin on the far side of Gorey in County Wexford. The daughter of a doctor and a teacher, she was dispatched to the Loreto in Gorey to obtain her secondary education. A commendation in the annual Texaco children’s are competition hinted, but no more than hinted, at the talent with which she had been endowed. Looking back, Pauline is not overly sentimental about the regime in the school but she had every reason to be grateful to one of the nuns.
It was Sister Paschal who primed her to enrol at a college in the UK which proved well suited to her capabilities. After a brief spell as an au pair in Italy, she set off to England to take a course in English, sociology and, of course, art – for it was art which most fervently set her creative juices flowing. The Irish teenager arrived in Liverpool in the sixties, to the city which had been made world famous by The Beatles.
She recalls walking past The Cavern where the Fab Four first came to public attention but a more substantial building loomed larger on her horizon. The art department at Notre Dame College of Education had a view across to Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral, then a building site. The church, with its ground-breaking, ultra-modern, circular design was emerging magnificent from the wreckage left by World War Two. The nun in command of the college’s art department was also responsible for commissioning tapestries and other creative pieces in the cathedral.
PAULINE Merry qualified from Notre Dame as a teacher with a distinction in art – ‘ because that was my passion’ – and then set off for the more humdrum surroundings of a secondary school in Oldham. The Lancashire town may have inspired LS Lowry, famous for the match stalk figures in his paintings, but she sensed a professional cul-de-sac and was not disposed to linger there for long.
She came home briefly to Ireland, married Kilkenny man Walter Merry, and then the couple headed promptly back across to England and the brighter lights of London. They lived during ther early years of their marriage in Clapham and she ended up as head of art at a comprehensive school in Streatham before the arrival of their first child prompted thoughts of home.
Pauline loved the cultural life of the big city with its galleries and museums. She took the opportunity to earn a degree in Art and Architecture from the London University and enjoyed being tutored in portrait painting at Hammersmith Art College by the very distinguished Ruskin Spear. She painted with enthusiasm throughout her time iEngland and achieved considerable recognition for her output.
The Arklow to which she arrived to take up a position on the staff of St Mary’s College in 1975 had none at all of that metropolitan buzz. She had a strong sense that the art establishment in Ireland was capital-centred and male-oriented, not that she was prepared to let the restrictions cramp her style.
‘ There was little support or opportunity for artists outside Dublin when I returned from England,’ she observes candidly, ‘in what was mostly a male dominated Dublin based art scene.’
At least the Avonmore Musical Society was delighted to discover that a formidable talent had landed on their doorstep, with Pauline volunteering to contribute to the success of the society through the 1980s. Her work for the stage was acknowledged by the Association of Irish Musical Societies with trophy for set design and painting.
Meanwhile, the high standard of her smaller
scale creations meant that she was accepted into the membership of the Watercolour Society of Ireland which has exhibited her works in their annual show for many years. Away from the classroom, she accepted commissions from organisations as varied as the Rehabilitation Centre in Roslyn Park, the Bank of Ireland and Woodenbridge golf club.
The Oak Henge gallery at the family – christened in honour of the tree in the garden by her late mother – provided an outlet for a painter who was relentlessly productive. The work which poured from her home studio is now enjoyed by customers not only throughout the island of Ireland but also in the UK, Canada, South America and France, to name just some.
SINCE the turn of the Millennium, gallery goers have had the chance to view previous one- woman exhibitions in Wexford and Glastonbury, as well as close to home at the Bridgewater Gallery.
The pace of the gallop had to slow some time and a combination of factors applied the brakes to Paulin Merry in the period 2004 to 2007. She had a brush with cancer m ’04. The economic crash sent sales into a nosedive. And from ’07, the grandchildren began to arrive – seven of them at the last count, each one a blessing. And another influence entered the life of Pauline and Walter as they acquired a camper van during 2005, in which the couple have toured Spain, Germany, France and Portugal.
She brings her sketch pad and palette on their travels and is very much the painter on tour. She confides, for instance, that there was no way that they could pass by the French home of Monet, the great Impressionist, without stopping and knocking at the door. She was given permission to enter the garden and set up her easel there – a rare, memorable and treasured privilege.
The villages of Spain and France are recalled on many of her paintings which line the walls of the house in Arklow. She keeps neat box files containing the sketches and drawings from each trip to the Continent, to be worked on at leisure back home in her attic retreat or in the ‘shed’ out the back: ‘I have a tidy mind,’ she laughs.
THE demise of the Celtic Tiger allowed Pauline, now grandmother Pauline to begin exploration in maturity of some of the new techniques which she has deployed in ‘ The Heart of the Matter’. She gives particular credit to the influence of Sonia Delaunay (18851979) the Ukrainian-born abstract artist who spent most of her working life in Paris.
Meanwhile, thefar ranging trips around France and Spain in the camper van prompted some intense thinking about what Pauline wanted to achieve with her art, making sketches along the way. The result is the fifteen panels, which are far removed from the cosy water-colours which she does so well.
The show is not a commercial undertaking. She will not checking to see if there are any red ‘Sold’ stickers over the course of the next few weeks. The exhibitionat the Courthouse is divided into three phases – 1-5: ‘In The Beginning’; 6-10: ‘Is Now’; and 11-15: ‘Ever Shall Be’. Along the way she toys with pagan patterns and symbolism before taking up Christian influences and a host of well-known images, including Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’.
‘Putting the exhibition together is an absolute delight,’ says Pauline. ‘It took me the bones of three years. You don’t put something like this together without a lot of struggle. It was a huge learning curve for me.’
She hopes that her efforts will repay close study and realises that they do not offer easy answers to any of life’s mysteries – and Pauline Merry is not one to shy away from mystery or myth or spirituality.