Sarah Iremonger

b. 1965, Ireland

My practice is based on a critical response to issues which arise in relation to representational and abstract painting. I do this through site-specific wall paintings and through the production of paintings and works which have a specific idea connected to the history of painting.

The images in White Landscape and White History were created by tracing drawings of the Hay Wain by John Constable and The Death of Major Peirson by John Singleton Copley onto each canvas. Then the surfaces were painted with white enamel household paint.

Using household paint questions the hierarchical value system painting has historically held. The use of white paint is a reference to abstract painting, and abstraction’s denial of representational issues in painting. The monochrome colour complicates the desire for a recognisable representational image, and the textured surface further complicates this, confounding a figure/ground reading of the painting. By reproducing The Hay-Wain and The Death of Major Peirson in the paintings, I am referring to painting’s representational history.

(Text: heroes + holies catalogue, 2002)