The late Patrick Scott’s twenty foot square “kite” has found a new, albeit temporary, home at Maynooth University. Made for the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 1977, this vast piece of coarse-weave cotton, on temporary loan from Trinity College Dublin, now dominates the main wall in the John Hume Building.
The artist based his design on Blaze (1972), the monumental tapestry he designed and had woven at Aubusson for the Bank of Ireland. Patrick Scott has previously described how he made the piece: “I got friends to come up to the mountains to a house I have in Wicklow up in the hills. We had it all spread out there and these friends just crawled all over it painting it with an acrylic.”
Speaking of the loan Dr Alison FitzGerald of the Maynooth University Art Committee said: “It is a pleasure to acknowledge the initiative of Catherine Giltrap, curator of the TCD Art Collections, in facilitating this loan. The John Hume Building is an ideal architectural backdrop for this piece and it is fantastic for our students to have access to this stunning work of art.”
Patrick Scott is widely recognized as one of the seminal figures in the history of Irish art and design. At the time of his death in 2014 Sheila Pratschke, Chair of the Arts Council, remarked that he had been instrumental in shaping a view of Ireland as being “a modern, culturally sophisticated society.”
Kite!’ ar taispeáint in Ollscoil Mhá Nuad
Tá an saothar ealaíne “kite”, saothar atá fiche troigh cearnaithe, ar taispeáint in Ollscoil Mhá Nuad anois. Chruthaigh Patrick Scott, atá imithe ar shlí na firinne, an saothar seo sa bhliain 1977 d’Fhéile Ealaíon Chill Chainnigh. Anois, tá an saothar ollmhór seo, atá déanta as cadás garbh agus ar iasacht shealadach ó Choláiste na Tríonóide, crochta ar an bpríomhbhalla i bhFoirgneamh John Hume.
Bhunaigh an t-ealaíontóir an dearadh seo ar Blaze (1972), taipéis ollmhór a dhear sé do Bhanc na hÉireann agus a sníomhadh in Aubusson. Rinne Patrick Scott cur síos ar an gcaoi ar cruthaíodh an saothar: “D’iarr mé ar chairde liom teacht go dtí na sléibhte, teacht go teach atá agam sna cnoic i gCill Mhantáin. Bhí sé sínte amach againn ann agus chuaigh na cairde seo ag lámhacán air, ag péinteáil air le haicrileach.”
Agus í ag labhairt faoin iasacht, dúirt an Dr Alison Fitzgerald, Coiste Ealaíne Ollscoil Mhá Nuad: “Is cúis áthais dúinn aitheantas a thabhairt do Catherine Giltrap, coimeádaí ar Bhailiúcháin Ealaíne Choláiste na Tríonóide, as an tionscadal a éascú. Feileann ailtireacht an fhoirgnimh Hume go mór don saothar agus is iontach an rud é go bhfuil fáil ag ár mic léinn ar an saothar ealaíne seo.”
Tá sé aitheanta go forleathan go raibh Patrick Scott ar dhuine de na daoine ba thábhachtaí i stair na healaíne agus i stair an dearaidh in Éirinn. Nuair a fuair sé bás sa bhliain 2014, dúirt Sheila Pratschke, Cathaoirleach na Comhairle Ealaíon go raibh tionchar ollmhór aige an dearcadh gur “sochaí nua-aimseartha agus aibí í Éirinn ó thaobh an chultúir de.”