AMoCA Collection | Verdant Mire, 2017, oil on canvas, 37”x80”
RAIR | 2017-18
CONOR FAGAN | BALTIMORE, MD
Born in Baltimore Maryland, Conor Fagan obtained his Master of Fine Arts degree at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the spring of 2014. A recipient of numerous awards and grants, since graduating he has been one of twelve international artists selected to participate in The 31st annual International Symposium of Contemporary Art, in Baie – Saint Paul, Quebec. He has works in numerous public collections including the Waterton - Global corporate collection and the Museum of Modern Art in Baei St Paul. His work is collected privately nationally and internationally from Toronto to Tel Aviv.
“Relying on an intimate version of automatism, my compositions become a morphing ecosystem of preconscious signs and symbols. The result is an enigmatic repository of meaning that the viewer is free to interpret endlessly.”
Roswell Museum and Art Center
Rair exhibition • Conor Fagan "This is not That" January 20, 2018 - March 4, 2018
During the creation of a painting there is an attempt to keep the decision making simple, clear and basic. Thoughts such as: what is this, what is this doing, why is this doing it, are negated. Interests become simplified. As I paint, I merely begin. Preceding with as little conscious thought as possible, I work reactively at first. Eventually, the space begins to assert more definition, and forms begin to emerge within an environment.
I endeavor to make a clearly defined world within which rest tangible proto-beings that nonetheless hold no significant meaning. The process is similar to surrealism in its tactics, but the goal is very different. While the surrealist painter is trying to extract meaning from the interplay between the unconscious and conscious mind using similar tactics, I start with the assumption that meaning is a futile pursuit. My attempt is to form vistas of empty phenomena. This creates a tabula rasa for the viewer, as significance can only be supplied by what they bring to the scene before them. - Conor Fagan