Forward from catalogue for Iomha exhibition 2006 curated by Ruairi o Cuiv and Cliodhna Shaffrey.
Brian Hegarty's collages are made from ' flat' material: cut-outs from magazines, photocopies, flyers, newsprint along with paint, markers and drawing, to build pictorial planes - fragmented worlds of small pieces overlaying small pieces - where surface encompasses all. His assemblages - almost 3- dimensional in form - build intricate compositions; montages, that at times open out disjointed narratives, where snippets of the recognizable are aside un-coded signs, texts and symbols. Others tend towards the purely decorative - pattern overlaying pattern. His starting point is usually a detail from a magazine, " maybe something from the "National Geographic" and with nothing prior considered, no structure, no plan, he works towards his finishing point - an aesthetic sense of completion. The works are for him "as much studies in process as they are finished pieces".
Led predominately by his subconscious, and only later taking 'control'- editing, adding, fixing - he presents a vision of fragmentation in search of an organizing principle. For Brian Hegarty is on top of his craft and underpinning randomness is a solid command of structure. Among his influences he cites outsider art - art made outside the art world - folk art and music, and there is within his compositions a musicality - rhythm - that mixes a lively intricacy with pictorial freshness and a quirky naivety.
The current series is after an album by 'Tarental' called From Bone to Satellite and suggests an all encompassing world and the possibility of being able to present myriad ideas simultaneously. The build up of layer upon layer in these collage works creates a sort of condensed time. Hegarty's collages of torn back, ripped and layered print matter evoke fragmentations, fracture and interconnection of our contemporary world. They are simultaneously subtle and striking.
