Fintan Whelan

Portrait of Fintan Whelan
« My abstract pieces form their own universe. »
Fintan Whelan is an Irish artist, born in Dublin and now based in Germany. After studying at Dublin Institute of Technology, Whelan went on to work and live in different countries before deciding to become a full time artist. His paintings have slowly developed in the direction of abstraction.
Creating his own Abstract Universe
Whelan is intrigued by the challenges that his art brings, where he embarks on creating resonances between the dynamic details of light and texture. Spending much of his adult life in Ireland, Spain and Germany, his work transcends cultural boundaries. His abstract pieces form their own universe, evoking a plethora of subjective emotional responses that vary in each viewer.
Imaginative and Creative Mind
Whelan employs the visual imagery of his memory and his everyday experiences to form the essence of his canvases. His technique involves constant assessment, examination, measurement and exploration of pigments along with their configurations. His painting style has developed over the years, settling with the ever increasing range of materials in combination with oils, emulsions and varnishes.
European Acclaim
Fintan Whelan has exhibited throughout Europe, predominately in Ireland and the U.K. and Germany. He has participated in numerous art fairs including the Affordable Art Fair, Hampstead and has been featured in prominent residential and commercial projects worldwide. He is also a member of BBK (German Federal Association of Fine Artists).
Soundtrack:
J. S. Bach
Cantata Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder BWV 135
Netherlands Bach Society
Shunske Sato, violin and direction
Ulrike Malotta, alto
Guy Cutting, tenor
Felix Schwandtke, bass
Recorded for the project All of Bach on 22 April 2021 at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht.
March 18, 2024
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[@albertjanvanhoek294]

I can be relatively brief about this non-figurative work. The artist clearly has created his own style and his own “handwriting”. However, I hardly see any development and wonder how long he can continue in this way.
Preference for "three": many paintings consist of three “organically” connected “corpora”.
In addition to multi-colored works (which sometimes remind me of fantasy innards of aliens - but that is very subjective): a preference for blue in many variants.
Sometimes there is a relationship between a “blue” work and its title: “Water Dance”, “Celestial” - and certainly: “The Ocean Fills With Sky”.
Furthermore, I very often see no relationship whatsoever between title and work.
Many thanks for Johann Sebastian Bach's music. Just a small note, if permitted.
In modern music there is sometimes a lot of fuss about “stolen music”. I'm not talking about samples, but about secretly borrowing from previously recorded works and then editing slightly. For example, the Blues plundering group Led Zeppelin is notorious in this regard. But this band is absolutely not unique in this respect.
This "borrowing" was quite normal in Bach's time. First of all, Bach used a lot of melodies “double” (a spiritual cantata and profane one with the same melody).
And the cantata here, in particular the ending, is related to the well-known “O Haupt Voll Blut Und Wunden” from the St. Matthew Passion. But that melody is based on a medieval profane song by Hans Leo Hassler.
And Bach made use of it many times more.

[@StefanJUlrich]

Good points about the difficulties of developing this further - it's quite a cool technique though ;) (Some kind of pouring I guess, but it results in unusually intricate structures, it's not clear to me how that is done ...).
Edit: OK, I found this video of his process: ua-cam.com/video/U4PCIoIHAHc/v-deo.htmlsi=UU3rKn44Rj-e11Ly
It seems these "microstructures" are due to chemical reactions of the various liquids (binders and solvents of some sorts) that he uses.
Perhaps the works would be more powerful if they filled the entire canvas, without the white primed canvas always visible at the edges. That would also make it less obvious how many "shapes" there are ;)