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INTERVIEW
Pauline Bewick: Freedom Artist
Entertainment Editor Ellen Desmond speaks with one of the
most accomplished Irish artists of our age, Pauline Bewick
When Ms Bewick, now aged 78, spoke to The UCC Express,
it was early morning and she had a full day’s work ahead
of her.
With a body of artistic creations now spanning 76 years (her
earliest work completed at age 2 is now part of her Seven Ages
collection) it was very intriguing to hear the routine of such a
prolific artist. “I suppose I have a creative process but I’m not very
aware of it. Let me just try and make myself aware of it now,”
Ms Bewick explained, before pausing momentarily and going
on, “well now, let’s look at today, I’ve got a commission and I
do have a sort of a routine with a commission. I have to finish
it today so I have it on the table here… and after, I’m going
to put in this thing that they desired - it’s of a woman baking
bread. I’m very conscious when I’m doing a commission.”
Ms Bewick, who announced on The Late Late Show
in 2005 that she was donating a vast collection of her
masterpieces to the state, now has two permanent exhibitions
of her Seven Ages collection on display in the Waterford
Institute of Technology and in Killorglin Town Centre,
Kerry. The third collection is travelling throughout Europe
and Ireland. This Seven Ages collection is as unique as Ms
Bewick, and she explains how her mother influenced her and
encouraged her from a young age, spurring her to become an
artist in the most organic of ways. “The word artist didn’t come
into my consciousness as a child for many years because I just
was a natural, as I think all children are…and therefore I never
called, or thought, about whether I was “an artist”, or not. I
worked liked that for all my childhood because my mother
didn’t believe in education and therefore never exposed me to
other artists and so it was a most unconscious passion that I
had and it was a passion, I constantly drew out what I felt like,
what I wanted, what I didn’t want, what I was afraid of...”
Ms Bewick went on to explain that as she progressed
during her late 20s, she became aware of the Impressionists
and claims that “to this day, they wow me.” It is the freedom
in their work that appeals to Ms Bewick, it’s a different type of
freedom to that which she gives her pieces, but she admires it
wholeheartedly nonetheless. In particular, the impressionists
have inspired Ms Bewick in her pastel paintings, which is
amore recently discovered fascination for her. She employs a
much different technique when working in pastel and she does
not feel the impressionists have had the same impact on her
acrylic or water colour work.
Today Ms Bewick pours the same amount of passion,
innovation and commitment into her work as she recalls having
possessed when a young child. On top of the commissioned
piece Ms Bewick is working on today, she is also in the
process of creating another artwork. There is a big difference
in how she approaches a commission and how she approaches
a piece she instigates herself but each work remains just as
dynamic and soulful. “I’ve got a line drawing ready to paint,”
Ms Bewick tells The UCC Express, “it’s of a man on the
beach looking at the sunset and he’s actually somebody who
I know around, and he’s quite cruel to animals and I totally
adore animals. So I’ve got him holding a skinny dog by a blue
rope round its neck, but he’s got a moment of reflection, he’s
looking at the sunset. So I’ve that to paint and how that started is I
suddenly saw him looking at the sunset one evening, when I was
on a walk and I said well imagine that, he’s got some sensitivity.”
Ms Bewick has become increasingly popular as her
long career progressed, and today she is at their peak of
her popularity. As one of Ireland’s most esteemed, prolific
and respected artists, she is a woman full to the brim with
personality and living in present, with an incomparable
sensitivity to the modern world and lifestyles around her.
Her artwork stands apart from other artists, and is almost
impossible to categorise into a genre. She feels her upbringing
played a part in why her work is so unusual. “I wasn’t exposed
to anybody else,” she explains, “It’s come as a sort of a virgin
thing, you know? And I think, well, critics say it’s original.
They can’t think of anyone that I’ve been influenced by, quite
rightly, except that when I got older, which is when I became
aware of other artists.”
Her popularity however, has not always been as widespread
as it is now. Perhaps this is one of the few ways in which Ms
Bewick does resemble other great artists, in that it took the
world quite a bit of time to adjust to what she has to offer, in
order to fully appreciate it.
“…it got - at the early stages of my life - a lot of scorn from
critics because they didn’t like the sort of easy line, they didn’t
like the sensuality, the sort of sexiness of it - way back in the
1950s, 60s, 70s… You know, I was rather disapproved of by
a lot of people. But there was the odd one who stood out for
me and saw it as original but it wasn’t in general. Then there
suddenly came a wave of younger people who felt that there
was a freedom there, that they identified with, I think. I think
that’s what it was.”
Indeed, her work does have a tangible sense of freedom.
Arguably it is in the autobiographical and personal nature of
her art that the freedom comes from; her art is full of truth. For
example her painting African Girl’s First Period from the 1980s
stands out as full of innate honestly.
“…the story of that is, I was having my last period as it were,
and she, painted in the African jungle crouching with blood on
her hands and a very querying look on her face, is saying ‘my
God what’s happening to me’ you know? And this painting
expressed all about femaleness and what not.”
However, it’s nigh impossible to attempt to do justice to any
individual piece of Ms Bewick’s work in one article, one would
need pages and pages to give any sort of accurate portrayal.
One Bewick creation that must always be mentioned though,
is that of “the yellow man” and as I tell the artist of my
admiration of this character, Ms Bewick lets out a delighted
“Oh hooray!” The Yellow Man is the personification of Ms
Bewick’s ideals; he is her ideal being. He’s complete in that he
is very happy with himself and anything that comes into his life
is a kind of bonus. “In other words if he has a partner, or meets
a new friend or an animal or whatever he communication with
that person flower, friend or whatever, is a bonus to him,” Ms
Bewick describes, “mainly he’s silent, he doesn’t talk and he’s
absolutely gobsmacked and everything that happens in his
life comes fresh. He hasn’t consciousness of any history or
anything, he looks at everything without any background to it
so he sees it like wow, look at this!”
Ms Bewick herself says that the best way to approach
art is to“…look into your own soul and heart, and feelings and
loves and dislikes and then be an illustrator; illustrate it, bring
it out” With the recent passing of Patrick Scott and Louis Le
Brocquy, Ms Bewick is one of Ireland’s greatest remaining
gems - one of the most accomplished names we have in our
midst today. She has an immense and incomparably original
collection of work to her name; a collection that is only set
to grow and develop even further in the years to come. It’s
difficult to imagine, when looking at how far Ms Bewick has
come, that her art could progress much further. But speaking
to her she has left The UCC Express with little doubt that her
creativity could develop in any direction and any masterpiece
could still be produced. She just keeps getting better and better
and taking on more challenges every day. Some amazing things
are behind Ms Bewick, but there’s undoubtedly more to come.
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