Reference monograph.
Oil, carpet tacks, acrylic, gesso, gouache, twigs, the occasional spray paint, pencil, dabs of watercolor, found photographs, found frames, bandages, a paper bag or two, screws, aluminum foil, scrap wood. The marginal meets in the paintings of Fergus Feehily, paintings that themselves stand at the periphery of contemporary painterly conventions—whose "subtle activity," as observes
Martin Herbert, "is on its way somewhere else, drifting out of view."
Feehily's monograph, the most comprehensive on the artist to date, brings into view more than one-hundred works made over fifteen years alongside clippings, notes, and research material from the artist's archive as well as exhibitions staged from Aachen to Mexico City to Tokyo. Essays by Martin Herbert, curator Chris Sharp, and artist Sarah Braman celebrate Feehily's reminder of, as writes the latter, "the joy of just looking."
The work by Berlin based artist Fergus Feehily (born 1968 in Dublin, Ireland) moves within the field of painting. Feehily's works impressively prove again and again how able he is to expand the definition of painting by combining simple found fragments with complex painting. In the process of artistic appropriation and the act of painting mostly small scaled, subtle and poetic compositions come about. Challenging works of modest beauty and intensity that bring together various times and stories unleash a stream of associations.
