Desmond Healy is a London based artist who studied Fine Art at Newcastle University & the Royal College Of Art. He works in a range of media including painting, drawing, etching, sculpture & photography.
Awards include the “Hatton Gallery Painting Prize”, “British Institute Foundation Award”, “Winsor and Newton young artist award”, National Portrait Gallery, London, and many others. Desmond has exhibited extensively in the UK and Europe since 1990.
Art, whatever it takes – RomeArtProgram has made interviews with people involved in art, living in Italy, the USA and the UK, to know their feelings during these hard times.
–> Desmond Healy interview:
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RomeArtProgram: What is your definition of “art” today?
-> Desmond Healy: Art today still means that activity that allows us as humans to understand and express something of our outer world and our inner selves – how do we exist today? Can we create a convincing vision of this that will tell people now and in the future how people lived, thought and felt in 2023.
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RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… how does it change, and how did it change us?
-> Desmond: Every generation has a slightly different notion of what art should look like – sometimes it changes through revolution, other times through evolution. Years later things get reassessed – I think that is when the slower burn of art that continues to move us kicks in. But energy, daring and innovation are essential too! Great art enlivens and enriches us and asks us to look deeper and further.
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RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?
-> Desmond: I had always drawn as a child, but as a teenager I discovered the photographs of Brassai and Bill Brandt. When I came across Caravaggio, Velazquez and Rembrandt I realised that painting and drawing from life could relate the physical presence of the world in a more tangible and material way. It became compulsive.
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RAP: What role does art play today? What are the “great figures” who have recently changed it? Do you feel close to any of these figures?
-> Desmond: Art has become a circus today, reflecting our times. The advantage now is that we have such easy communications that we no longer have to only believe what is “annointed” as being important or relevant. There are still artists who touch us and challenge us, like Picasso, Brassai, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Giacometti, Soutine, Francis Bacon, Cartier-Bresson, Vivian Maier, Alice Neel, Frank Auerbach, Anselm Kieffer; their work excites me and challenges me, even when I find it at odds with my own vision of things.
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RAP: Are there still traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?
-> Desmond: Discerning collectors may be the most important of these – discovering a personal collection belonging to one person who has the courage to follow their own vision is often the most interesting way to discover art.
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RAP: How have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it…? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?
-> Desmond: It’s double edged: we have greater access to images than ever before, but less time to digest things. But art, especially painting, has always had the ability to incorporate all of the flotsam of the world whilst making something that has to survive time. Can we still hold the attention of our audience? I think we can – there is something so basic and primal about painting and looking at art -we follow the traces of a hand across a surface and re experience that moment- from last week or five thousand years ago – there is a magic there that takes takes us to the core of who we are.
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RAP: Art as a mirror of man, in this moment of emergency seems to be shattered …what do these fragments reflect now?… Shadow or light of the moment?
-> Desmond: We are in a time of crisis, but humans are essentially optimistic creatures! We get up and want to make things. Uncertain and difficult times ask us to decide what is important – is art more than decoration? Can beauty and truth exist together?
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RAP: Understanding, interpreting, and then possibly judging the work of art; which is the right path when we are in front of a piece of art?
-> Desmond: I think that we do all three at once! But one has to remain open – usually we are expecting to see something and may be disappointed. We bring all of our knowledge and previous experience whether we admit it or not – but the art that continues to resonate for me has usually evoked that split second rush of recognition.
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RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?
-> Desmond: Art schools guide us to develop visual and critical intelligence. They allow us to ask questions – about language, style, sacred cows and assumptions.
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RAP: Art too has undergone a complex process of globalization; can having an authentic and genuine style be an advantage or a drag for an artist?
-> Desmond: The market may be a big influence on the assumption that an artist should have a recognisable style – a USP! For me, the most interesting artists constantly evolve and the question that I ask is “how elastic is this style?”. Is it a cage or a limit for the artist, is it a repetition or can it grow and encompass a range or sensations and feelings?
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RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?
-> Desmond: Curators and galleries can give sense and shape to an artist’ vision if the work is shown with visual sensitivity. I still think that history and chronology is very important – I am hoping that the era of the gallery as pick and mix theme park is coming to an end…
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RAP: “Figurative” or “Abstract” ? Which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?
-> Desmond: The two are relatives – art that stands up and continues to resonate has visual structure and substance. The intensity of the work doesn’t depend on the genre!
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RAP: Today we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice based on your experience do you feel you can give to young artists?
-> Desmond: Be yourself! But be aware that you are expressing more than yourself – you are expressing something of the time that you were born into. And look at everything!
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RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?
-> Desmond: Art may not save us- but it may remind us of our human frailty and our capacity to create poetry.
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@desmondhealy.art
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