The Waste Of The Waste

One of the earliest successful ‘field’ (or as Kieran sometimes has it, “all-over”) paintings, Waste of the Waste continues the experimentation which is such a strong feature of the early ‘90s work. There are the discreet red, yellow and blue elements underlaying three random bone fragments; there is the rare inclusion of ferrous metal in the form of burnt nails and screws; and most unusually there is the part-deconstruction of the paint layers themselves - indeed, most of the visible colour is not even paint, but a thick mat of golden-yellow alkyd resin sealing in everything beneath.

The double-barrelled title reflects some of Kieran’s very early thinking about the furnace waste he rescued from the crematorium. If the bodies it was his duty to cremate were, in a manner of speaking, the leftovers of the life process, then the materials he rescued from being dumped are the leftovers from that: hence The Waste of the Waste.

Kieran is alert to the poetry of this concept, and others like it, right up to the project’s title itself: Here Lies. This is the literary/conceptual dimension to his artwork it is important to keep in mind always, especially as we are absorbed in the act of looking. All Here Lies’ titles are inflected by this same meaning-critical spirit: indeed, these titles (and many more besides) when collected together and read in a certain order actually constitute a stand-alone piece of literature in their own right, a key facet of the Here Lies project overall.

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 98 x 66 cm 

Price:  POA