believe that an artist paints essentially for himself, and perhaps for his god. I know that if I felt that no one would ever see my work, I would simply go on painting and drawing, as surely as I breathe, in fact, breathing and painting are equally natural processes for me, and have been since early childhood. Since I live very reclusively, and usually in pretty inaccessible places, there are vast numbers of my works which actually have never been seen. Even those who have collected my work have never seen more than a fraction of what I have painted or drawn. Now while one would certainly go on working if ones work was never going to be seen, that does not stop one from occasionally wishing it could be shared, especially the pieces one loves the most. How fantastic it would be to have everyone see it, and hopefully enjoy it, is a thought that is rarely absent. Well, beyond my wildest dreams, technology has given me that possibility. Even though I am technology�s number one dunce, it has given me a manner in which I can show my work, and to even more people than any exhibition is likely to achieve. And I can even talk a little about it. It is really too much to believe, but here it is and I hope those who find it will find pleasure in it.
The book "A.Christian", which I will tell you about momentarily, was published ten years ago, since when I have done an enormous amount of work, including even styles (and mediums) I had not worked with, by the time my book was published. So I have tried to show as much work as possible that does not appear in the book. I have done that also for the sake of all those who own the book and therefore have a general idea of my work already; it would not be very exciting for them to see all the same work over again, and I hope that in spite of having that general idea of my work, still they will be most surprised by what they see.
The question I hear asked most often is "But if he is as great as he appears, how is it possible that I�ve never heard of him?" It seems to be something which really confuses people. That is not necessarily surprising as, since most people do not spend their lives studying Art, they usually lack a confidence in their own taste or judgement, and so assume - and hope - that anyone really gifted is likely to be famous. If they have heard of the artist it at least gives them a little confidence that his work is worth acquiring, especially in this age in which the signature on a work is in danger of becoming more important to the collector than the image of the work itself, actually a source of sadness to me as an artist, as well as a source of surprise to me as a collector, which I have been since very young. In fact, it is to give those people who are so in doubt of their own judgement a greater faith in my work that I decided a year or two ago to start exhibiting my work, to which end I have already arranged a show at the Westwood Gallery in New York in July 2001, and at the Frederick Gallery in Dublin in October 2001. This website will also help of course, and in fact is able to give people an even wider awareness of the range of my work than can be achieved in a show where space is inevitably limited. In fact, both galleries where I will be exhibiting in have each decided, I think intelligently, to concentrate only on one specific aspect of my work, as they believe that if they tried to show samples from each of the genres I work with it would be too overwhelming for most people, they would end up not being able to see the wood for the trees. In New York we will concentrate on my Drawings, mostly of trees, as that is what I am most involved with at the moment, and in Ireland we will be showing paintings, mostly still life and local landscapes. And since I would dread an art that was ever either boring or predictable, in each show there will be a surprise or two.
Sorry, I digressed; to answer the original question, why have you never heard of me, since it is obvious from this website that I have been "going" for rather a long time? It is very easy to answer that in a few words. Whilst still very young, rather than following the usual career for an artist, and concentrating on exhibiting my work and becoming known, I chose to wander the world and live a nomadic existence as I felt I was searching for something (actually God and Love, and by the grace of the former I found them both.) This search took somewhat longer than I originally anticipated, only quite recently coming to its conclusion. If you but knew of the rare places I have visited and even lived in, to find what I was looking for, I�m sure you would be as surprised as I am, frankly, that I was even able to find the time to paint and draw, let alone on the scale that thank Heavens I managed to achieve. The reason for that is that a second gift I was given was an unusual amount of energy, and the need for relatively little sleep. Plus I never for a moment forgot my art, no matter how hot on the trail I was, on my hunt.
This website, arranged for me by Mike Hannon, to whom I am eternally grateful, is divided into categories of subjects. Unlike most artists, whose names even become synonymous with the one or two subjects they work with, my criteria is Beauty; no matter what the subject, if I find it beautiful, I feel the almost desperate urge to paint it. Of course, I have my favourites; I don�t believe God ever created anything that compares to the beauty of Woman, and so I tend to paint that subject more than any other, especially now, in Surreal Compositions. But I am also profoundly moved by the beauty of Nature in all her aspects, from fruit and vegetables (I am a strict vegetarian) to trees and landscape, and of course animals and birds, which I intend to incorporate a great deal of in my new work.
While I am anxious to devote this website to the visual, and not to too many words, since it is hoped that it will help us to meet people inspired by our work, collectors and publishers etc., I would like to mention some of the projects not possible to show on this site. Having had a most unusual, probably unique, relationship with Art in all its aspects since early childhood, I have been writing on the subject for a number of years. I am working on a seven volume book titled "God�s Brush." Each volume covers a period in my life, chronologically, but includes countless stories concerning a vast wealth of subjects from flying saucers to nutrition and the afterlife. All subjects to which I have been unusually close during my journey, and my search. The first volume of this work is complete; titled "The Child" it covers my birth and the period of painting in the National Gallery, which so many people have asked me about it started me writing. The second volume is near completion also. I am searching again, but this time for a literary agent with a love of Art, something surely easier than finding God and Love...I hope.
I have been writing poems since I was very young; well, I hardly "write" them, they just pour out of me. I have written over a thousand, and my wife Marian recently put a small collection of a few chosen lines from several of them together to accompany a book on her "Fandalas," works she created soon to be shown on her website, attached to this one. We would love to publish that book, as well as perhaps a book of our poetry.
Since my first book was published in 1991, I have created a huge body of new work; drawings of trees and gardens, as well as surreal and erotic compositions. It would be marvellous to publish a new book, this time through a conventional publisher, so it might reach far more people than "A. Christian."
During the �70s, I was particularly frustrated by my painting, with which I didn�t feel the same confident sense of mastery that I already felt with my drawing. This frustration manifested itself by my taking countless photographs. Since I didn�t feel competent to express my reaction to something - or someone - through my painting, I used photography as a sort of compensation. But of course, after a while I really got into it, and became a photographer as much as I was painter. Living in beautiful places with a particularly beautiful woman, I ended up taking a vast number of fotos, which I have since put into two books, ready for publication.
More recently, I have taken countless fotos in India of our most beautiful home; Marian has become a wizard on the computer - she simply has that kind of brain, the opposite of mine - and has experimented with all sorts of technical approaches to these fotos, producing what I find to be the most marvellous photographs. We would love to exhibit and publish these, as well as another more intimate collection I have made on the Nude. We believe that all these forms of creativity that we have been gifted with would cause infinite numbers of people great pleasure, that is why we wish to find publishers or agents, to achieve this.
Somehow in the middle of all my dramas and moving from country to country, I have managed to put together the most unusual stamp collection. And last but by no means least, I have written a screenplay for a dreamed of movie based on my life and my art and the music of Shostakovich. Movies have been a hobby of mine since childhood, watching them and eventually studying them as a medium. It is an incomparable medium of course, as it incorporates acting with the visual arts, literature, music and acting. As a very demanding lover of movies, I believe the most fantastic movie could be made on Art that most certainly hasn�t been made yet, and I would love to make it.
I would like to thank all those who have shown faith in my work by collecting it, and even those who have reached out a helping hand in any way at all in what has not been an easy path. Without those people it is unlikely that any of this would exist. A heartfelt and eternal thanks to you all. And to my wife Fanny, debts of thankyous too numerous ever to be "paid, " but it�ll be fun trying.
Dear Reader, Dear Art Lover, I am most proud to present this website of my work.
