223. Fire
223. Fire, 2025, oil on linen, 40 x 30cm, (Darryn Ansted)
I like the way painting has developed over the past 500 years. For me it is like playing a musical instrument. You have to practice it everyday and not get too worked up.
In a lot of cold places throughout Europe, it is a tradition to have a bonfire at the end of the cold months and as Spring approaches. I can faintly remember it from my early childhood in Ireland. It is practically an opportunity to burn combustible waste, for example, Christmas trees. It is also an excuse to bring people together and drink a beer. It is also visually quite impressive. On a deeper level, it is a chance to mutually be grateful for the harvest that has been and hopeful for the summer months and harvest to come. It is also a religious event that can involve a blessing. The Easter fire is a tradition in Geseke
I have been asked many times why I am in Geseke and how I can expect to be an artist in Geseke. I have been asked about this maybe 50 or 100 times. It is a perfectly fine question to ask. Geseke is a town of around 15,000 people. I usually start to answer the question by explaining “I thought about living in Düsseldorf because it is a big art city. But when I moved to Germany it was in the middle of the pandemic and everything was closed, and we were also expecting a child. So, we moved from Düsseldorf to my wife’s hometown of Geseke and enjoyed the low rent, abundant space and bucolic environment to live and raise a child. Furthermore, during my walks through the fields when a biplane flies overhead, the putt-putt of the propellor sounds so at home over the fields that I too feel like I am at home.
The person I am talking to then replies “but this is just a small town and the people are not interested in art.”
Maybe I appear like an imbecile to them but it is possible for me to live and work as an artist successfully in Geseke.” I have made art for a long time, receiving my Bachelor of Fine Arts over 20 years ago, and I have made art in many different places. I am not famous but a few people collect my art. I don’t need to be in a big city. I always sell my work to people directly from my exhibitions. By developing my circle of collectors, I can follow where my artwork goes and maintain conversations that are very interesting and can last for many years. When someone acquires a painting, it is a special experience. My circle widens and I feel like the world is reaching back to shake my outstretched hand. Sometimes mid-career artists are in a situation like this.
Art is a human reflex. It is important to let go of wanting to make impressive things or show -off, and instead to make something from one’s unique perspective. That is the most important thing, and that can be done in Geseke. I think the sentiment that people here do not ‘understand’ art is quite unfair. Mostly, I am interested in an art that is felt. And that is something that one does not need to be highly educated or indeed very wealthy to do. Almost everybody puts something on their wall. A museum welcomes everyone. When visiting Australia in the 1980s art critic Clement Greenberg said art’s success was a function of how many millionaires there are in a city. Perhaps that is true but what then is the kind of art that he is addressing. There is indeed more attention-seeking art in big cities but that is often to its detriment.
