SEA CHANGE Leonard Sheil

Droichead Arts Centre Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland

SEA CHANGE Forward Leonard Sheil 5

Watching all directions Prof. Ciarán Benson 7

A thin skin Paul Mosse 9

Submersion Ciara Ferguson 11 Two living environments Michaela Seif 15

Sea Change 17

Short biography and exhibitions 31

SEA CHANGE

For the past 20 years most of my work has in some way been related to the sea. How does this vast space that is deep, grave, old, over- whelming and sublime relate to the human condition? The sea is a symbol of both confinement and freedom. It is also a place of tragedy. People will always work, play, swim and eat from it . To move over it, stay above it ,or vanish in it, has echoes of eternity. It represents a freedom that is a way “out”, an escape, a transit route to dissolve from this world.

Every stretch of coastline has its own history of wrecks and drowning. Every cemetery has stories and memorials to those who have no bodies left to bury. Memorials of those lost to the sea are few, but are often monuments placed away from communities. This work does not mourn the sea-dead, but commemorates those lost to the sea. It does not alter any sea tragedy, but merely indicates its occurrence.

“Icons express things in themselves invisible ,and render them really present, visible and active“ Vladimir Lossky

One section of this exhibition, the series “Icons for lost fishermen”are dedicated to all of the victims of the sea. They attempt to present lives with all their hardships without any romanticism. The profile emerges as a matter of extraction from the surface. Their Faces - an identity - escapes them. The suggestion is to wonder about identity. Larger works,for example Limbo attempt to deal with the Ocean as an engulfing transitory space, from known position to unknown destination. For those using it as a route that becomes a final resting or Ruhestätte - meaning last home. Leonard Sheil

5

Watching all directions

There is a distinctive kind of respectful helplessness felt by those whose working world is the sea. No such worker has any illusions about its overwhelming power. It tells them it is best to work with, and risky in the

extreme to work against, its power. Acceptance is their watchword, and a stoic courage their response. I recently found an account of a great storm in the 1870s that destroyed the living quarters of the lighthouse-keepers in Belmullet on Ireland’s west coast. They survived the waves crashing in through their roof that dark turbulent night. One of my great-grandfathers – from a line of nineteenth century

Doldrums mixed media on canvas triptych 240 x 100 cm 2008-2010 6

7

A thin skin Some personal thoughts about the sea.

My family was fearful of the sea. I can still see my father, a passenger,

crouching low down in an 18 ft sailing boat and grasping the gunwale in a gale. Those teenage burning days at the seaside when I really wanted to be at home shooting pigeons off the corn. At 20 years old, hauling the body of a heart attack victim ashore on a lonely Kerry beach - a long term haunting. The ocean is the big and generous farm with no need for maintenance but which we still manage to abuse.

The fearsome Maelstroms. It also seems the life and well being of the sea depends on this activity, in a lesser form, in order to mix the different water layers.

The Abyss. Those deep chasms cutting

Sanctuary mixed media on canvas triptych 240 x 100 cm 2009 -2011 8

9

Submersion

On the Southwest coast of Africa is a long desolate stretch of Namibia known as the Skeleton Coast, for the hundreds of shipwrecks that have

been washed up there at the edge of the desert over centuries. It is a fog shrouded, lonely, inhospitable and inaccessible stretch of the Atlantic Ocean. In Dun Laoghaire harbour near where artist Leonard Sheil grew up, beautiful sailboats line the marina, their rigging flapping against the wind. The two sides of the sea, life giver and life taker. 

The Sea is a force of nature that has always had a mesmerising hold on human beings. It used to be an important means to explore and discover, to trade and to transit. It knows no boundaries but its own, and even then, a tsunami is always possible. Long ago they thought if you sailed to the horizon you would fall off the edge of earth. In some ways this is the vast

ocean and the edge that Sheil navigates in

Stories about navigating mixed media on canvas diptych 300 x 140 cm 2013-2014

10

11

12

Icon for lost fisherman III mixed media on driftwood 30 x 26cm 2000-2010

13

14

Icon for lost fisherman I mixed media on driftwood 30 x 26cm 2000-2010

15

Mythical wreck mixed media on canvas triptych 426 x 122 cm 1997-2007 16

SEA CHANGE

17

Parallel Line Search Digital mixed media print on Chromaluxe Aluminium 30 x 40 cm 2015-17 18

Sector Search Digital mixed media print on Chromaluxe Aluminium 30 x 40 cm 2015-17

19

Creeping Line Search Digital mixed media print on Chromaluxe Aluminium 30 x 40 cm 2015-17 20

21

Uncertain Mixed media,sea salt on canvas 80 x 100 cm 2014-15 22

Unsafe Mixed media,sea salt on canvas 80 x 100 cm 2014-1523

Unconfirmed Mixed media,sea salt on canvas 80 x 100 cm 2014-15 24

Limbo- Vergessenheit Diptych mixed media on canvas 140 x 300 cm 201525

26

Sea scan 1 (Triptych) Mixed media on canvas 40 x 40cm 2012-1427

Tidal Race Mixed media on paper on board 37 x 37cm cm 2007-08 28

29

Beyond III Mixed media on paper on board 37 x 37cm cm 2004-08

30

Doldrums detail

31

Leonard Sheil A degree in graphic design1984 at IADT Dublin. Initially worked as a graphic artist, in Dublin and then in London as a set painter, at the National Theatre Southbank . Awarded a scholarship in 1985 to study at the Beijing Language Institute,and the Central Academy of Fine Art China.

In 1995 he was selected as voyage artist and quartermaster for Tim Severin's 'Spice Islands Voyage'. The voyage covered 2,500 miles in six months in a specially constructed traditional vessel, sailing among the eastern islands of Indonesia. Sheil illustrated the book of the adventure.

In 1998 he was an Irish representative to the International Watercolour Symposium Latvia. He was awarded best conceptual work. In 2005 and 2006 he was artist in residence at Krems, The Factory, Lower Austria. In 2006 had his first solo exhibition in Austria at the Gallery Kuntsverein Baden .

In 2004 he produced his first short film - KISH - A short experimental documentary, about the Kish lighthouse in Dublin Bay. In 2006 his second film 'Hermitage' was about Skellig Michael, an important spiritual retreat and settlement of 6th century ascetic monks. It was first shown publicly at the Kerry Film Festival.

In 2014 Leonard was elected the first Irish member of Kunstverein Baden, established in 1924, one of the oldest in Austria. He lives and works in Vienna, Austria and Co.Wicklow, Ireland.

www.leonardsheil.com

Awards 2006 Culture Ireland Bursary The Anatomy of Territory- Kunstverein Baden, Austria. 2005 Artist-in-residence at ‘The Factory’, Kunsthalle Krems Austria. 2004 Residency at Cill Rialaig Project, Co.Kerry. 1998 Arts Council Artflight, Latvia ‘Ceisis 98’ Watercolour Symposium. Best conceptual works ‘Ceisis 98’ Watercolour Symposium. 1986 Dept. of Education Scholarship to Beijing, PRC Language Institute. Beijing Academy of Fine Art,China. Printmaking.

Film 2013 Reggio Film Festival,Italy. 2012 ‘Lange Nacht des Film Festival’ Galerie Blaugelbezwettl, Zwettl, Austria. 2006 "Hermitage" nominated for Samhlaiocht Kerry Film Festival.

Collections Allied Irish Bank ,Guinness Ireland Ltd.,Trinity College Dublin,St. Patrick’s College.Dublin

Private collections UK, France, Austria, Germany, USA, Australia, China, Indonesia.

Represented by PContemporary Galerie Michaela Seif, Vienna. Austria. Galerie Gut Gasteil, Prigglitz. Austria The Catherine Hammond Gallery Ireland

32

33

34

35

Photography / Layout / Design Ulla Reithmayr

© 2017 Leonard Sheil all rights reserved Printed in Germany