Damian Fennell

My fundamental desire is to experience exquisite centredness of being. It is an inner stillness and it has the quality of tapping into an immense power source. I access this primarily though meditation and contemplative practices derived from the nondual philosophy of Advaita Vedanta.  This experience of centredness has always motivated my work, and in the past two years has informed an evolving body of work that examines the feminine expression of underlying essence and the breathtaking potency that seems to emanate from it.  I see the artistic process as a challenge to find form for this formless essence, a silent enquiry into deeper understanding of it and a vehicle for engaging with it as much as possible.

Drawing, sculpture and writing are equally important activities for me and I endeavour to nurture an ongoing dialogue between these disciplines as a means to stimulate internal enquiry.  I often build up drawings in layers of pencil, charcoal, ink and paint and model the sculptures direct in plaster, both processes allowing me to switch fluidly between different pieces over long periods of time.  The physical engagement with these media is like a process of meditation in activity that reconnects me with centredness and perhaps transmutes that experience into form.  I started painting the eyes after seeing a woman on a train and being struck by the intensity of consciousness that concentrates in a human gaze.

I am strongly influenced by Gormley’s single-minded pursuit of the body as vessel for consciousness and by the iconic, impassive stillness in much of his work.  I see this same presence in the Qingzhou and other Buddhist carvings from the 1st millennium AD, and archaic Greek kouroi.  However, Yves Klein’s radical artistic interpretations of his spiritual conviction and Bill Viola’s flawlessly crafted, boundary-testing use of video will influence my next phase, as I want to explore a more content-driven mentality towards language and media.

February 2007