Oil on Gesso Panel
36 x 48 inches (91.5 x 123 cm)
These are the schoolbooks that belong to Clodagh McHugh, a First Year student. I felt it was important to show the sheer volume and weight of the amount of books that a 12 year old had. She would leave about half of them in her locker but I still had to struggle to carry her bag. I don't think books like these will even exist in a decade, it will all be on a tablet of some sort. Hence I felt it important to record their passing, and also to someone of my generation schoolbooks are almost iconic.
“All of us enjoyed Blaise and his amazing art, he included us all, painting our whole school. In the hallway when I was walking to my locker, he asked me if he could use my school books to paint a picture of them. So I gave them to him for the mid-term break, and when I came back he had the painting finished and it was precise and perfect in every way.”
Clodagh McHugh