Irish painter's brush with fame

Irish artist Genieve Figgis is holding her first solo exhibition in Asia, titled Drama Party, at M Woods Museum in Beijing.

The ongoing exhibition serves as a midcareer retrospective for the artist, showcasing more than 40 artworks spanning her early career to the present. Several new works created this year are unveiled to the public for the first time. The exhibition will run until June 4.

It has taken the 51-year-old Irish artist 10 years to turn into a rising star in the art world in Europe and the United States from being a housewife.

Figgis' works often feature elaborately dressed protagonists from the 18th century. Whether members of royalty and the aristocracy or generic subjects of the genteel class, they always appear in grand and luxurious surroundings, whether for weddings, dinners, festivals, feasts or excursions in nature.

Her style employs both the aesthetics of European rococo and the British "conversation piece", a group portrait depicting figures interacting in a domestic setting.

Figgis' art cannot be easily categorized, as she explores classical painting subjects in a unique, almost manic manner.

Using her distinctive fluid brush-strokes and vibrant colors, the artist re-imagines and interprets the works of masters like Jean-Honore Fragonard, Francois Boucher, Thomas Gainsborough and Francisco Goya. She aptly refers to these works as "cover versions", borrowing the term from popular music, to signify their status as reinterpretations of famous historical pieces.

Figgis confesses that, like many young girls, she was enamored in her youth by the opulence of upper-class society, the ambience of royal balls, and the grandeur of immaculate ceremonies. However, it wasn't until she grew older that she realized that the 18th century, an era of wealth and power for some, was far from perfect, especially for women. She discovered that the lavish fashion of the era carried implications of scrutiny and constraint.

"Although we are only a few hundred years away from the 18th century, the people of the time seem to come from another world. What can we learn from history? It's a question I need to solve step by step, like a huge puzzle," Figgis says.

Figgis typically lays her canvases flat on low tables or on the floor and splatters diluted acrylic paint onto them. In this process, gravity takes the place of a brush, allowing the paint to flow, spread and coalesce on the canvas.

She thoroughly enjoys this alchemy-like creative process, filled with unknowns and serendipity, which results in artworks that exist somewhere between abstraction and realism.

The paintings showcase a fusion of colors, dissolving forms, and blurred body contours that gradually emerge within the luxurious backgrounds of 18th-century elite life. These works embody the artist's exploration of both the materiality of art and sensory experience.

The figures in her artworks resemble haunting phantoms or whimsical clowns, with distorted faces and enigmatic postures. They create an eerie and surreal atmosphere, reminiscent of the artist's affinity for Gothic literature.

"Like rippling reflections on the water's surface, the opulent and lavish scenes in the paintings appear ethereal and elusive, as if they were fading illusions or dreams," says Qi Yuanlin, one of the curators of the exhibition.

Deng Yingying, another curator, comments that "Figgis' creations skillfully navigate the realms of dreams and absurdity, humor and horror, homage and subversion".

Figgis was born in 1972 in Dublin, Ireland, and currently lives and works in County Wicklow, Ireland. As an artist, she has chosen an unconventional path. While painting has always been an integral part of her life, Figgis embarked on her professional career after already establishing a family, becoming a wife and mother.

Figgis did not come from an artistic family background. Her mother worked as a homemaker throughout her life, while her father, a carpenter, ran a workshop where he passionately crafted various wax figurines. Whenever their home needed furniture, her father would handcraft the necessary pieces.

Influenced by her father, Figgis learned woodworking during her secondary school years. As a child who loved drawing, she would often use the people around her as subjects for small comic strip creations.

After getting married and having children, her passion for art expanded as she became involved in creating costumes and set designs for school drama classes.

Figgis had no formal connection with the art world until she took an art course at the Gorey School of Art, and in 2006, she graduated at the age of 34, after her two children were already in school. Later, she studied art and received a master of fine arts degree from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin in 2012 when she was 40.

Figgis claims that for a housewife, the idea of returning to university and pursuing painting seemed like a far-fetched and absurd notion. However, she couldn't control the extravagant ideas that filled her mind. From a young age, she had a fascination with 18th-century fashion, history and painting. She desired to use painting as a means to explore different historical periods and fulfill her dreams.

Only a year after graduating from her master's program in Dublin, her paintings were discovered on the internet by the eagle-eyed artist Richard Prince, who bought some of her works and recommended her to the New York art world.

Figgis' dark, strange and surreal style of painting soon attracted the attention of critics.

"With her distorted figures and vivid colors, Figgis conjures up a world that is both whimsical and disquieting," Adrian Searle, art critic for The Guardian, a prominent British newspaper, commented in an article. "Her paintings challenge conventional notions of beauty and invite viewers to explore the complexities of human emotion and the subconscious."

Jerry Saltz, another well-known American art critic and writer, wrote on his own Instagram, "Genieve Figgis' paintings possess a darkly comic and fever-dream quality. She combines classical art references with a contemporary sensibility, creating a unique visual language that is both unsettling and captivating."

Figgis' works are now included in the permanent collections of the Bass Museum of Art and the Perez Art Museum, both in Miami; the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago; and the Aishti Foundation in Beirut, Lebanon, among others.

They have been featured in numerous exhibitions and projects in art institutions such as MoMu, Antwerp; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and the National Museum of Ireland, both in Dublin; the Consortium Museum, Dijon, France; the Aishti Foundation, Lebanon; and the Met Opera, New York City.

But her daily life hasn't changed much.

She still resides in the picturesque countryside. Her children have grown up, allowing her to spend more time on her artistic pursuits. Every day, she drives 15 minutes to her studio, which is surrounded by sheep and cows, with green fields and manors nearby, and the shimmering sea in the distance.