* All images used with permission from artist. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Phil Irish
Elora, Canada
Posted: 6.11.09
More info: Artist site
Rating: 
( after 95 votes)
About Phil:
Irish has been asking people to draw maps for him. Participants diagram a place of personal significance: perhaps where a decision was taken, or an accident happened, or a place of solace returned to again and againIrish follows these maps, full of curiosity and empathy. At the destination point — significant to another but new to him — Irish draws, takes photographs, and takes time to explore.
The map and Irish’s response to the place are fused as one artwork. Once the process is complete, the finished works spark imagination and wonder in those who engage them.
The visual languages in the paintings are diverse and rich, taking the cues from each individual place. There is often a collision between representation and some form of abstraction that points to a metaphorical reading of the scene. There is joy in the sensuality of the medium, pulling the viewer deeper into the experience of viewing, interpreting, and exploring.
Your art is amazing, Phil!
Phils paintings always make me wanna go to the site of his inspiration.
Hi there. It has been good to read the comment on my work here. Perhaps I will add a bit of info into the mix.
- The inserted diagram and “screenshot” in these paintings are digital prints of other people’s stories. My work starts with the memories of other people about specific places. So you can see their writing, but my painting draws out themes that relate – I hope – to everyone.
- They are not murals, but oil on panel, to be hung on a wall like other paintings.
- The Blue Stripes: the note there is about a forested area that could be developed into a business park. When I followed the persons map, I found trees marked with blue spraypaint where they were going to log. I thought little marks of blue would not register strongly enough, so I made the blue geometric zips that break the organic landscape.
- Sorry for such a long note! Enjoy!
These pieces remind me of fractured light, especially the second piece. I love the idea of making something traditionally beautiful into something abstract but still just as beautiful. I also believe they are murals…explaining the odd “screens” in the center.
I think the pictures are murals…
The pieces remind me of fractured light, especially the bottom piece. Gorgeous and enlightening.
its like a tree house………cool 
This is really great. I like how it’s not just a cool and interesting picture. There is a story behind it-and it’s not just the painter’s story, it’s many different people’s. I love it.
WOW, I LOVE this, sooooo cool. The tree house one is so perfectly representative of how I remember my own childhood tree fort. I love the process too. Art is often so individual, and that the artist is taking his art and merging it with the art of storytelling and poignancy of such memories is fabulous!
Very beautiful colors. I love the woods with the streams.
Leave a comment
Last year's artist on this date:
Comments
18 Comments