Fine artist Fintan Switzer has been leaving his studio and going outside recently to experience the fresh air and to explore what it’s like to paint walls. From Michaelangelo to the erotic wall painting of Pompei to the great Latin American muralists of the the last century like social realist David Alfaro Siqueiros and the firebrand Diego Riveira, we have been addressing issues of class and social station with paintings on walls for a very long time. With this in mind, Switzer has been creating his social themed realist oil portraits that appear to break free from the walls of Killarney in the south of Ireland.
Fintan Switzer (photo © Fintan Switzer)
Mr. Switzer talked briefly to BSA and explained his interest in “Silver Inheritance,” his most recent foray into the outdoors.
“Indoors you are confined to the dimensions of your canvas and your studio. Painting outdoors offers you the freedom to use the surroundings and merge your piece with the setting.
The title ‘Silver Inheritance’ is a play on the expression ‘born with a silver spoon’, I don’t know if the expression is used much in the States but it means to be born into a wealthy family. The character in the painting is working class, a labourer condemned to a life of hard work and low wages, living on the margins of society. His inheritance is his family’s social class, lifestyle and a future of unrelenting marginal existence”
Fintan Switzer (photo © Fintan Switzer)
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
The transition from graffiti to abstract painter invariably captures our attention. The two disciplines that would be so insulated from one another, yet many times we find a graffiti writer who fiftee...
Who are these revered men cast in iron, carved in marble, poured in bronze? What great lengths have they traveled to achieve what high aims, and who decided they were worthy of statuary? Also, how lo...
Here's our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring Chupa, Elsie the Cowww, Gane, Gemma Gene, Kai, Li-Hill, Mr. Babby, Panic, Peachee Blue, Pork, Skewville, Sydney G. James, and Zex...
It's our second day of sharing scenes from Trashplant and here we see Icy and Sot are bobbing and diving inside a colorful unnatural environment of plastic trash that is being corralled into a fenced ...
April is Earth Month and the 22nd of April is the dedicated day of the year to focus on planet Earth. The beautifully hued blue planet. With that in mind, we wanted to show two photographs that s...