My PanArt Paintings

"Gan Ainm"

Bríd Ní Mhaoileoin - Textile paint on canvas - 35.5 x 12 inches (90cm x 30cm)

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PanArt

I was introduced to PanArt by Graz artist Manfred Url, and after many workshops both with Manfred Url and with the founder of PanArt, the Voralberg artist, Masu, we opened our PanArt school "Malmühle Sigmundstadl" (Sigmundstadl Paint Mill) in Graz Austria.

The term PanArt comes from the Greek "Panta Rhei" which means "alles fließt" or "everything flows". For the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Heraclitus (about 535-475 BC), everything is "in flux", as exemplified in his famous aphorism Panta Rhei:

Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει
Everything flows, nothing stands still

The ideas behind what the Voralberg Painter Masu calls PanArt have been around for centuries.

In 1784, the landscape painter Alexander Cozens advised fellow artists to follow the promptings of fantasy and create images from blots of ink on crumpled paper: this astonishingly modern idea about chance and composition echoed Leonardo da Vinci's practice, nearly three centuries earlier. Leonardo was in fact quoting his fellow artist, Botticelli: "By merely throwing a sponge full of diverse colours at a wall, it left a stain on that wall, where a fine landscape was seen." But Cozens arrived at his "New Method" on his own, without prior knowledge of his Renaissance precursors, and made startlingly expressionist images. Werner Nekes has a rare album of 1885 filled with drawings of imps and devils that were doodled by workmen following the drips and splashes of coffee on the walls they were plastering.

Edited extract from an essay in the book which accompanied the exhibition "Eyes, Lies and Illusions" which took place at the Hayward Gallery, London in October 2004.
"Eyes, Lies and Illusions" ISBN 1 85332 244

What Masu wants to create with PanArt is an art form that is accessible to everybody, and which rejects elitism. In PanArt we start with natural structures like those created by Bottichelli's sponge and work from there, with the precept that your natural creativity is much more easily animated when the starting point is a piece of paper or canvas with natural structures rather than a sheet of blank paper.

For more information about our PanArt Workshops, about PanArt in general (and its founder Masu), and about Manfred Url (who painted the beautiful painting "Die Sonne" - the sun - which adorns my debut cd), please click here www.manfredurl.com.

All paintings below are in the PanArt technique with textile paint on canvas.

Detail from "Schutzengel"

Bríd Ní Mhaoileoin - Textile paint on canvas -
18 x 65 inches (1.5 ft x 5.5 ft or 45cm x 165cm) -

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"Sonata in Blau "

Bríd Ní Mhaoileoin - Textile paint on canvas
30 x 65 inches (74cm x 165cm)

"Der weiße Stein"

Bríd Ní Mhaoileoin - Textile paint on canvas
35.5 x 12 inches (90cm x 30cm)

For more information about our PanArt Workshops, about PanArt in general and about Manfred Url (who painted the beautiful painting "Die Sonne" - the sun - which adorns my debut cd), please click here www.manfredurl.com.