'There are some remarkable portraits of children. Catherine Creaney's beautiful baby in a yellow dress; Klute's Lara; the young girl in Stephen Murphy's Peter, Evka and Sara; Emma Stroude's Twelve and a Half; Miseon Lee's Sceptic; Cristina Bunello's Rainbow Painting II; and Laura Cronin's Another Snow Day.' Cristín Leach, The Sunday Times Culture supplement.
"Emma, a rising star of Irish art world...",
EMMA STROUDE- The Maud Gonne Series.
Throughout art history we see the separating out of certain cultural items, events or people as special or of interest. Such items were often illustrated through painting and later in the 19th century were photographed, the image was said to be a 'copy' of the original painting. In these works Emma Stroude has taken a fascinating contrastive step by taking available photographic images of the Irish Nationalist, Maud Gonne McBride. (1866-1953 connected the nationalist cause with women's movement and close friend of William Butler Yeats). Stroude has produced portraits from these photo images thereby creating the extraordinary paradox where the photographs become the 'originals' and her superb artistic creations may be said to be 'copies'. Stroude tests and demystifies these worn concepts of critical language.
In so doing, these portraits are freed and seem somewhat larger than life and the nominal subject is permitted to stare us down in a way not possible perhaps even with contemporary camera work. This stare may have been characteristic of a determined woman in a revolutionary era of change and new strident liberating attitudes.
Emma absorbs the implied causes, nationalism and feminism, but the real core of this venture is her deepening interest in a development in art itself.
Like Maud, Emma Stroude is British-born and is now living in Ireland. She trained as a painter in Chelsea and Slade Schools of Art in London where she distinguished herself graduating in 1996 and later moved to Sligo. Her work is to be found in private & corporate collections in Britain and Ireland where her powerfully stark imagery has attracted a considerable number of admirers.
One suspects that this series is not intended to celebrate a deeply felt cause. Stroude has become well-informed on Irish issues through her interest in Maud Gonne. Rather, her own courage in painting may stimulate the debate on art today by her growing her own efforts in a new and exciting way for an audience to reflect on their own position in relation to these matters in a broadening culture that has moved on and is in a state of enduring social change.
Looking at these works we may contemplate a new canon for today-that idealistic trends of revolution and agitation, speaking as they do here through a compelling portrait, even in current reality, seems an excellent means of social expression beyond the photograph for directing the eye away from nihilism towards towards the poetic, towards art as the pursuit of new awareness.
JOHN MAHER 12.3.2014.
An exerpt from John's review of CONEY (Group Show at The Hyde Bridge Gallery Sligo, November 2014)
'Emma Stroude's haunting atmospheric island landscapes say something of the district's dark winter feel. Her distinctive skills in the use of materials- in this instance oils, is quite the perfect medium of this kind of brooding isolated world.This theme is well grasped here by Stroude in an able engagement with a sense of honesty to materials as well as honesty to Coney Island. At this time a superb exhibition of her extraordinary piercing portraits are on view in the nearby ,Model Gallery.
All in all the exhibition was well worth its salt, this being for several reasons, firstly, the local and visiting attendance was most encouraging ( I visited on a Thursday Morning and noted the steady stream of visitors coming through).
Secondly, the individuality and divergence of this work shown as it is in this well appointed gallery surroundings makes a clear comment on the position of women in painting and contributes reams to the gender balance in the public consciousness.
Thirdly, this I leave to Baudelaire:
'.....the aesthetic individual lives in and depends upon a society and it follows that the ideal society is one which accepts and modifies a known culture.'
This show carries some of that kind of cultural awareness- the unpresentable made presentable and illustrates how that may be achieved. How sad that this conception seen by so many should be dismantled and forgotten. I would recommend in the strongest terms that it be offered for sharing with the widest possible audience within the broad Arts constituency and beyond. '
JOHN MAHER 2.12.2014
