Kevin Kavanagh is pleased to present two exhibitions by Paul Nugent.
Remembrance Part I was shown in April at Kerava Art Museum, Finland.
Just as these paintings were slow to conceive and create, they necessitate measured, contemplative readings. References include the chapel at the Salpêtrière – the Paris prison, poorhouse and asylum turned teaching hospital – as well as one of its illustrious physicians (and a father of neurology) Jean-Martin Charcot: the authority the medical profession wielded in the nineteenth century being analogous to that of the church. Kerava Art Museum director said of the work, that “Nugent speaks about the quiet disintegration of historical knowledge, meaningful places and religious symbols into mere memories”.
Opening the afternoon of Saturday 17th October, Part II sees the artist using his mother as model for paintings which reference nineteenth century photographic printing processes and fourteenth century Dutch painting. Working from personal photographs, every aspect of which have been staged, the artist layers pigments and glazzes to connect the physical aspect of making with the idea of reaching back historically.