William Crozier’s Edge of the Landscape @ IMMA // Review by Stacey Wrenn Crozier's exhibition at IMMA offers something new in contemporary art.

Winged figures, blood-drenched landscapes, crucifixions; IMMA’s retrospective of the work of William Crozier (1930-2011) is that of the apocalypse, stripped of its religiosity and set in rural Ireland. Crozier is best known for his lyrical landscapes of his home in West Cork, but the tone of this exhibition is much darker and more explicitly political than that of the first part on display at the West Cork Arts Centre this summer.  

Crozier was fifteen years old when WWII ended, too young to be involved in the war, but old enough to be deeply scarred by its effects. This anxiety is palpable in the confrontational nature of these paintings as he found himself in Ireland during the beginning of the Troubles in the North, the atrocities of which would dominate his canvases throughout the 1970s.

His stark palette of acidic yellows, glowing greens and bloody reds that make up his fields adds to the violent nature of the imagery of his bold compositions. These are not joyful, decorative colours by any means, but are inspired by  German Expressionism prior to the First World War, where colours were primarily used as emotive elements — to shock and sometimes disgust viewers. The bold black outlines that occasionally appear in the landscape give the suggestion that it wasn’t always like this, that the darkness was an unnatural addition by the people populating the area. The malevolent crouching creatures as in ‘Winged Figure’ (1970) are reminiscent of those of Francis Bacon, whose work he had become familiar with during his formative years in Paris.

The highlight of the exhibition, and perhaps most poignant example of how deeply affected Crozier was by WWII, is ‘Crossmaglen Crucifixion’ (1975). While the subject matter of paintings like ‘Winged Figure’ remains ambiguous, this is absolutely a political picture. A cadaver-like figure stands out, crucified in the centre of the canvas — the viewer is forced to look at its exposed muscles, achieved by repetitive yellow lines that add a sickly, rotting quality to the figure.  A river of blood flows around the figure and leads to a tilting church steeple of which we are not told the denomination. This is a clear reference to the sectarian violence that was paralysing the country. Crozier’s painting of works such as this and his adoption of Irish citizenship were political acts in themselves, as it was around this time that the IRA were starting their campaign in the UK.

These anti-romantic, bleak impressions of the Irish landscapes, and the histories that weigh them down, show a true connection between the artist and his environment, something that remains to be seen in contemporary art.

Crossmaglen Crucifixion (1975), oil on canvas, 216 x 219 cm.

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