About Bart

Baltimore County
Biography
 
I was born in Dublin, Ireland and have lived in Maryland since 2003. I make interdisciplinary work that includes painting, drawing, poetry and video. I teach at The Maryland Institute College of Art and Harford Community College. I have shown work extensively in Baltimore, Washington DC. Philadelphia and New York as well as Ireland and Northern Ireland. I received my BFA from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin in 2000 and my MFA from MICA… more

Things might Happen in the Sky

Before the trees silhouette the night,
They scrawl a burnt umber firmament.
Weary worn out American.
Small things still bring comfort son,
 
Things might happen in the sky
Like last winters light 
or sorrowful envy.
 
There’s an old painted stone
Tucked away in his home.
And memories plenty.
 
Iridescent glossy stains,
Messy hands,
For different days,
Land and water carved beneath,
The muddy clay brown hillside steep,
That stone became the place I found it
Grey and waxy earth-like grounded.
 
All the others out the door,
Conjure things like this once more,
A crawl among the thistle weeds,
Nettle stings the cure dock leaves.
A rusted barbed wire covered stile,
Not camels hump, nor needles eye
A heaven rich men cannot buy.
Housed beneath the bramble bush.
Gentle winged speckled thrush.
 
We hear them long for better days,
It’s struggle making calming waves.
 
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    Yellow with chair
    The place where the work is made seems inseparable from the work itself. The drips on the wall, the relationship to architecture the light from the door or artificial source all seem very important to the point where I am not sure this work even translates to the traditional white cube. Part of my own going investigation will be to operate in a fluid way that questions what it means to be a "Studio Artist". I am aware that tropes like ther artists chair, brushes and drips are heavily loaded and enjoy navigating this in a playful way.
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    Autumn artificial
    How the work is seen and photographed seems to be as important as the work. In fact it may even be the work.
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    Three Stumps Yellow
    The residue of previous paintings accretes on the studio wall. This trace of a mark and its potential for mystery drives much of my practice.
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    Things might Happen in the Sky
    I have always been messy. During my time in the National College of Art and Design in Dublin I used to put paintings where ever there was space. The room i was in had two taps on the wall. A professor came in and laughed at the painting leaned on top off the taps. He asked if he turned them on would paint come out? At the time I just thought it was a joke, now I seriously consider this as a question about placement and what painting might mean in the context of installation.
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    Dolly.jpg
    Sometimes the work is most interesting before it has begun or when it is unfinished. I have very little interest in finished paintings. the relationship between the shadows from the dolly and the blank canvas just happened. It was not planned, however after years of looking at the same things interesting connections happen by their own volition.
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    Actors
    Sometimes imagine the works as actors on a stage empty of people. All that is left are the props. A space for intervention or poetry occurs.
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    Sondheim 1.jpg
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    Sondheim 3.jpg
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    Sondheim 2.jpg
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    Sondheim 5.jpg

Refrain

My bird feeder knows
Balance’s difficult pose
Hung from a tree 
Empty, barren of seeds
 
Redundancies grip 
Gravities tip
It dangles away
Mocking winds fickle sway
 
On cherry tree grows
Blossoms on hold
Guarding the buds 
‘Til spring says she should
 
Burst into flower
Pink petal’s power
A week in the sun
They fall then they’re done.
 
But that is not all
Winter and fall
Pulled from the mud
Life’s forces should
 
Draw from the rain
Roots will sustain
Mundane sustenance
Rewards temperance
 
For us this is true 
Wake, sleep, renew
Practice restrain
Then sing your refrain 
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Winter

 
Winter takes patience
The passing of shrines
Bright flowers frozen
All in a line
 
With cause to remember 
This dying December 
Don’t it show
On everything that grows?
 
Each line a victory
The flowers; mine too
Wrestling meaning 
From things seen passing through.


Tucked by the pike’s side
Tiber shed blues
Palettes all stacked up
In a row too

Ordered disorder
Is this what I meant?
Thin frost is covering
Stone grey cement.
 
A muted dull timbre 
Echoes to sooth
The sound of the winter
With multiple hues.
 
So rings the last month
Of each passing year
Somber grey palette 
Inviting us here
 
Black scene through concrete
Crisp clean grey lines
Ellsworth’s abstraction
Multiple times
 
Light shafts, tarp cloths 
Nuanced and new
Deep in the windows
That I’m looking through
 
Not to see people
I can’t quite explain
Seen from the roadside.
Shapes shifting yet framed
 
Devoid of noises
Refracting couplets 
Seen, as if for the first time 
In glass, sky and jets.
 
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    Instagram October 13th 2017.jpg
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More about Rhythm

This is more about rhythm than something to say. Picking my way, through thickets, spigots words that seem rigid, won’t bend to the verses, have bitter disdain, for the rules of staccato, that more learned know. What do you mean saying diminuendo?
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Across the Hall

 Across the hall,
A child's bedroom wall,
Glowed like pale winters sun,
A bright lemon yellow.
 
As profound an afterthought,
Snatched from the isles,
As Turner's soft plains,
While his dogs walked on water.
 
Torn from a notebook,
Sandpapered scrawls,
Kitchen ephemera.
On teenagers walls.
 
Summer storm lashes,
A hole in the roof,
Not this days theme,
Calm and serene.
 
Stared at for years,
But now like an answer,
Calling quietly,
To all of these things.
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  • Across the Hall
    Across the Hall