Healy paints emotional detail
VISUAL ARTS
Holiday: Richard Healy
Emerge Art Space
Review by Laetitia Wilson
Painting the human condition is a subject that will never lose interest. As humans, we are ceaselessly fascinated by ourselves and those around us. Richard Healy is an emerging artist who paints our existential condition in states of indeterminacy, intoxication and complex relations with others.
Healy had a strong start to his career, as winner of Emerge Art Space’s Cream art award for best graduate in 2009. Following this, he had his first solo show at Emerge and then pursued studies in San Francisco. He returns to Perth with his second solo show, also at Emerge, titled Holiday.
It looks like the kind of holiday that leaves an indelible imprint as experientially dense. Scenes of the night are populated by figures in various states of socialisation, withdrawal, ambiguity and undress. The paint is deftly applied and has hit the canvas fluidly, densely, with attention to details such as eyes gazing both intently and absently.
There is an acute sensitivity to the complexity of light and the subtle and intense ways it falls on subjects and objects in the night. Emotional states are conveyed by the way light hits faces, emphasising their creases and points of tension.
In a portrait titled Buried, a young man turns his face away, light bathes his fleshy skin and it is unclear whether his hand is intently (if awkwardly), shielding his face from the light, or absently raised in gesture. The title gives it away however, by suggesting a kind of checking out of reality, buried within himself and turning from inquiring eyes.
The ambiguity of the subject matter is not by chance. Healy aims “to create scenes in which something is about to happen or has just happened, the moment of consideration before, or after an action”. Many of the works are open to alternative interpretations.
The paintings are based on Healy’s social scene in San Francisco and supplemented by his imagination. This injection of fiction into fact gives them an edge, a complexity and additional layer of interest or intensity. It is not that the scenes are improbable; it is more that they come alive in intimate and unexpected ways.
In States of Decay, a dense party scene unfolds. The gaze is drawn to a Christ-like figure, with prominent ribs on a naked torso. He is casually taking off, or putting on, a shirt yet the iconic stance and intensity of his eyes make him a powerful figure in the picture plane. Behind him a party light shines red in reference to a bleeding heart and the background blurs into a hive of activity.
Healy could almost be read as a contemporary Manet, painting the scenes of his generation, in bars, various interiors and outdoor spaces, much like Manet painted the social life of 19th century Paris.
These paintings are a product of the artist’s generation. Growing up playing video games and now working for game company Crystal Dynamics as a concept artist, Healy is well attuned to the aesthetics and dynamics of games and this informs his work. It also goes some way in explaining his intentional disposition towards tense ambiguity, which can be likened to limbo moments in games pre or post-action.
These paintings mark a continuation of the artist’s career and if he does not become lost in the video games industry, then his artistic future is undeniably bright.
Holiday is at Emerge Art Space, Inglewood, until May 23.
