Panel discussion: What is it to paint (in) a city?

Artist talk moderated by critic, curator and educator James Merrigan, with panellists Stephen Loughman, Colin Martin, Mark O’Kelly, Sonia Shiel, Orla Whelan.

The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “The city is always recruited from the country.” He followed this claim with, “We flee from cities…” There is a double inscription to Emerson’s observations on the city, a pull and release that portrays the city as a place of transition. In the context of art, the city is a place where artists flock to art schools, galleries and like-minded others in the pursuit of this small and ambiguous thing called ‘being an artist’. The city promises things (at a specific time in the artist’s life) that the country cannot entertain, like appreciation, community, influence, agency, and perhaps even a life – we are “recruited” by the city.

For the 6th Zagreb Biennial of Painting, which in its five previous editions has used the European city as a way to define and demarcate painting practice within a given national art scene, Dublin city painters have been recruited by Zagreb City in an exhibition that brings painters and paintings together under the idea and within the reality of the city. On the occasion of this rare event, the participating artists will come together in a talk titled, 'What is it to paint (in) a city', where we will discuss the artist's work through broader questions like: What is it to paint? What is it to paint in a city? What is it to paint a city (as backdrop/ theme /subject)?

Biography

For the past decade James Merrigan has prompted and disseminated polemical and playful art criticism as a writer, editor and artist. This 10-year project includes online and printed identities and entities including +billion- journal (2010-17) and Fugitive Papers (2011-13). He was awarded the inaugural Critical Writing Award by Visual Artists Ireland and The LAB Dublin in 2011. For the past two years he has edited, screen-printed and exhibited art and text projects in collaboration with other artists under the moniker Small Night Zine, which has two forthcoming exhibitions at Catalyst Arts Belfast and Garter Lane Arts Centre Waterford in 2022. He refers to his current writing and editing practice as a “pragmatics of language”, which includes theoretical and practical solutions to realising ‘community’. He teaches and co-curates at Gorey School of Art’s Periphery Space, and lectures in Psychoanalysis and Art at Trinity College Dublin. His art criticism exists independently of editorial or institution at iamnotapainter.com.