A consciousness of time, fragility and material sensitivity underlie all of Denis Farrell’s paintings. By repeating the same non-expressive strokes, Farrell is able to mark time as well as shape his passage through it. He seeks to relinquish all figuration through precise brush strokes within the structure of a 1-inch grid, and then proceeds to dissolve that structure.

“I am constantly challenged to unknow everything that stands in the way of painting.” As critic John Yau observed, his consciousness of art as a repeated act, combined with an intense material sensitivity, and, in the watercolours, a sensitivity to colour and light that spans the spectrum between materiality and immateriality, is what sets Farrell’s work apart.

“The semiotic intrigue of his colour bears down upon me in a midst of sensing their overflow. All the while, the tactile resonance of these intimate surfaces keeps my eye steady in the centre of the force-field, signalling solitude without fear of recompense. These paintings are about intimacy.” —Robert C Morgan