NOTEBOOK

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Without cadmium red

I sweat when I’m asked for a profile image…

I immediately think of David Brent from The Office and “Brent Mused” and worry about authenticity.

I’m not a fan of the studio photo. If it was genuine I’d probably have cadmium red paint on my face - it gets everywhere, more so than any other paint.

Oil paint gives me back the time technology steals.

Studio Objects No.1

people ask me what do I use to make my paintings.

John Cronin Notebook - Danish house painter’s brush. — Danish house painter’s brush.

Studio Objects No.1

Copenhagen Brush

I bought this brush in a hardware store in Copenhagen, I had been looking for drain cleaner, but that's another story. I'd never seen a round brush with such a flat top. I bought it not knowing what mark it would make and wondered would it be useless for my purposes, whilst obviously being perfect for some element of a danish housepainter's trade. I was seduced by the fact I didn't really understand its purpose.

Why do I paint?

upon much thought

Best advice I ever received

not nactually received

I was asked recently, in an interview in a Sunday newspaper, for the best piece of advice I ever received?

One of my answers, which they went with, was “you can’t grate cheese with a rope”.

My other answer, which unfortunately they didn’t go with, was from David Bowie talking about being creative and making work just beyond your competence. Many people in the creative world have probably come across it but I still think it’s worth sharing.

““If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.””

— David Bowie

Nice to hear other people discussing your work

Fictional Fiction | Behavioural Harvest | Discussed by Jerome and MissyB

Wonderful surprise to see this in my instagram feed - It’s a snippet of the conversation between Jerome O’Drisceoil and the wonderful photographer Missy Brinkmeyer (@whereismissyb)

Dots

People ask about the dots

The dots play with harmonies and contrasts. They undergo change within the piece, the red dots becoming visible when they enter the dark top section while the pale blue ones become tarnished after having been born out of the large pale blue swirling gestural movement. The grey-green ones are neutral, non-functioning, maybe spent forces. Some of the dots have a stillness at odds with the background but others are caught up in the maelstrom of events. The underpainting shows through them like a record of what came before them while later layers obscure them. Dots have a resonance that is correct for what I am putting forward. There is something complete about a dot. Within a composition dots can be free elements, units that can develop, migrate and evolve. They can become corrupted, mutated or be cloned. They can be both a chaotic and a unifying element.

Video of ZXX 16

DIRECTOR'S CUT

I wanted to recognise that this is a digital image of my painting, a compressed and backlit version, a flat image, stripped of material presence. The circulation of images has become an essential part of how contemporary painting is seen and understood, but it reveals less. I called this video Director’s Cut, acknowledging it as a translation between object and image. A Director”s Cut is intended to restore the original vision of a version of a work as its creator envisioned. While this is impossible with this video - it does give us the opportunity of a closer look as it pans across the work in an attempt to recover something of the experience of looking. An attempt to restore the act of looking.

Instagram sensorship

John Cronin Scar tissue image detail.jpeg

I referred to my underpainting as scar tissue - they wouldn't allow it -

Social media treats my painting practice as self-harm.