The Red Toque

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The Making of

The Red Ensign

Building the support out of plywood.

Gluing on the old blanket and figuring out the hard parts.

Gluing in the white blanket.

Under-painting.

Pondering the piece vertical

Starting the detail....

Getting it dirty....

Bringing the work to life.

This was the Canadian flag until 1965. I used to tie this flag to a stick when I was 6 or 7 years old and run around the East York neighbourhood of Toronto playing war. I got the flag when they demolished the original Secord School where I spent kindergarten and grade one. I still have a soft spot for the flag even though it seems so commonwealth. A lot of great Canadian moments happened under the Red Ensign like Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and the hanging of Louis Riel. This version of the flag has green maple leaves in the emblem like the merchant navy.

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THE WORK

Molloy's work focuses on culture through the use of its stereotypes, traits and artifacts.

Jeff employs a wide variety of distinctive techniques, tools, and personal processes that result in truly unique, instantly recognizable work. Jeff is curious. His creativity shifts and twists in response to his materials. Beeswax, tar, pigments, remnants of human civilization – all react differently to the tools and techniques he employs. Carving, painting, sculpting, applying heat and blunt force all contribute to objects that may resemble paintings, yet may just as easily be mechanical and functional in nature.

To Molloy, line is a physical thing, something that is cut and gouged. His surfaces are built up and scraped away. Jeff uses homemade tools to draw, paint, carve and burnish his surfaces of wax and tar until they reflect their own history.

“I've always believed that experimentation, not technical skill, is at the core of creativity. Artists should be explorers, and the world of art should remain a place without rules or boundaries.” Jeff Molloy

In 1995 encouraged by a photograph of Jasper Johns’ famous encaustic work, Flag, Molloy began to experiment with encaustic. He comments, “I recognized in Johns’ piece a number of aspects that have become paramount in my own work. The impact, power and inherent meaning of cultural objects and how they can be used to evoke emotion and memory...I wanted my work to mimic the real thing but, as an art piece, be more interesting than the motif itself.” Molloy achieves this by tapping into these emotions and memories and presenting them as highly articulated works of art. The encaustic works tread the line between painting and sculpture. Where paintings tend to provide context for their subjects, Molloy’s pieces intentionally strip away everything but the object itself.

“The context for the work is the environment in which it is shown. It just makes sense to me that the space should play a role in the perception of the work,”

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

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Jeff Molloy - Mixed media painting and assemblage

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