Common Ground

Common Ground

Common Ground is an exhibition of small paintings by the London based painters Adam Hennessey and Róisín Fogarty at Galleri Hi10.  

Adam & Róisín met as participants on the Painting Programme at Turps Art School in London in 2014. They were studio neighbours for a year and both went on to work as mentors on the Turps Correspondence Course. 

In previous work, Hennessey made paintings about the experience of growing up as a gay teenager in the South of England in the mid 1990’s.  His new work continues along an autobiographical theme, this time informed by a romantic break up. His work has been described before as ‘memory fantasies’.  Sometimes he attempts to picture a memory, and other times creates an alternative ending to an event, showing what he wishes might have happened. Imagery of boys fighting and a donkey in a cemetery all pop up in these new paintings for Common Ground. After working for years in a reduced colour palette of Phthalo green, other colours are now making their way back into his work. And since being advised to work with a water spray to keep his acrylic paints open for longer, things in his paintings are starting to become less defined.

Fogarty's paintings for this show were made during a two-week studio tenancy at Henrik Ibsengate in February 2022. She lodged in Skien taking walks around the city and hikes near Heivannet and Bliva. Using raw pigment and an acrylic based sealant, she made paintings back in the studio about her experience of the landscape underfoot.  It was a mild and sunny fortnight.  The snow had thawed in town and hiking tracks in the mountains were patchy with scraggy earth and soggy puddles. 

Fogarty makes landscapes from a combination of memory and imagination. Often using the framework of a grid to start a work, she then maps repeat imagery across the structure playing with colour temperature, scale, and depth.

Adam and Róisín would like to thank all at Gallery Hi10 and for the opportunity to do this show.