A STRIKING QUALITY of the landscapes featured in 'The Old Grieving Fields', apart from the Sligo-based artist's clear aptitude for drawing, is the role played by many of their supports. Standing in front of an artwork, it is common to absorb content without conscious regard for the material upon which it has been created. But, here, the supports invite greater attention. Sometimes remote, sometimes immersive, the 38 depicted scenes are arranged in clusters with common features that, together, proffer diversity in perspective and scale. They emit an air of disquiet, of things in flux yet somehow timeless. This is partly due to Wann's use of charcoal, derived from his copying of black-and-white photos from newspapers as a child.1 Working from darks to lights through erasure and reinforcement, he achieves a wide tonal and mark-making range, disrupted by occasional colourful elements. The largest group, 20 tray-framed works on panel from 2024, represent a recent development within his practice. Applying charcoal direct to wood requires careful handling, and the results remain both crisply detailed and sensitively atmospheric. Warmth from the wood glows through, its grain contributing to the imagery. Each is composed of three-quarters sky, one-quarter aerial view of the terrain below, and hints of danger from natural phenomena or human intervention. While Deep Dark Night features a pitch-black firmament, dark, lightly textured ocean, and softly lit horizon, Eclipse reserves the blackest black for the titular phenomenon, ringed by crepuscular rays. Its print-like feel derives from the wood grain, which also reads as clouds, while the patterning in Murmuration enhances the dynamism of a formation cohering in flight above a tracery of fields. Omens (Crows Arriving) obliterates other elements with an all-over, chaotic scattering of birds, their portentous blackness exuding a sense of menace. People rarely feature in Wann's landscapes, yet human intrusion is implied by the intriguing visualisations Balloons and Recon; the first features hot-air inflatables, the second a squadron of helicopters. Consequence from human activity is suggested by Controlled Explosion and Footprints, the latter foregrounding a passenger jet to reference carbon-dioxide excess. All seem emblematic of the impacts of needlessly induced crises, including climate change. Opposite, are large drawings on Fabriano supports, collaged together from smaller pieces. The resulting patchworks in Aerial 1-6 (2024) create an uneven surface that traps or resists the medium, depending on the direction of travel. Wann senses they may reenact his experience of being adopted and later piecing together his family history. Some years ago, he was taken up in a small aircraft over County Carlow by a half-brother, who pointed out the farm where his birth father had lived. The photos he took combined with memory and creative processes to inform the series. Aerial 6, The Bloodline of the Fields, directly references that encounter, the red lines that define gaps in the assemblage emulating a family tree. Aerial 3, Night Visions takes it into a dream world where the artist experienced a vision of the fields his father worked being on fire.2 Here, and in other exhibits, he overwrote in red the Fabriano watermark, inviting attention to the artifice of his creations and establishing a tension with the interior acts of drawing out that produced them. Possibly referencing the role certified records play in authenticating a person's identity, other devices used to mark works as 'documentation' include a 'rejected' stamp in Aerial 3, Night Visions and official 'seals' in Approved Landscape #1 and #2
(both 2024). In Landscape on Fire (2023), inspired by news that the Amazon rainforest was in flames, Wann includes an ornate trompe-l'oeil frame, reflecting his desire to talk about imagery and how we look at it.3 Described as a "lament to a landscape in distress," 'The Old Grieving Fields' reflects our constructive impulses and the impacts of our destruction - including the lost potential of unadulterated nature.4 Although Wann prefers that his work not be defined by biography, his drawings impress as a form of working through, and this, above all, gives them deep resonance.5
March 7, 2025
