To Buy Original PIGSY Artwork

Intuitive Art by PIGSY

Art without bounds

PIGSY creates large scale neo-expressionist works of art that have been exhibited in The Kemp Gallery in Dublin, Ireland along with other venues. The bright and striking works appeal to collectors for both their vibrancy and intensity but also for the message within the painting. PIGSY is a storyteller and a poet who reacts to the world around him and uses the canvas as his medium to express himself.

For further information about artist PIGSY and his expressionist artworks, contact Ronan Campbell in Designyard Gallery. Worldwide shipping is available.

Kemp writes about Intuitive Artist PIGSY

Including redacted text which is explained below

Pigsy is an artist hailing from Dublin's inner city, in Ireland. He paints in an attempt to assuage the conflicts in his mind, with his canvas being the battleground and the media he uses the tools of resolution and understanding. His media include acrylics, spray paint, chalk and anything else that feels right in the moment. Most figures that he creates in his work are of himself and this self portraiture sets him up as both the protagonist on canvas but also the antagonist as the creator and puppet master of the piece.

Religion: A Catholic Upbringing

Although claiming to be agnostic, there is a strong religious undercurrent to a lot of his work, with angels, crosses and crowns of thorns featuring in many of his pieces. This may be as a result of the strict Catholic schooling of his youth. ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

Free Style: Raw & Emotive

His technique normally involves a free flowing start to each piece as he sets the scene for the broader context of the work, followed by a slower, drawn out finish as he immerses himself into the painting and endeavours to elicit an answer to the conundrums that he faces and to dig himself out of the holes he creates for himself in his mind.

He deals with dichotomous matters as a general rule : loneliness and the need to be alone, fame and the need for privacy, straying from the norm and the need to fit in etc. ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ In his latest tranche of work, he explores the existence of extraordinary people, their psyche, the effect that they have on society at large and vice versa.

PIGSY Art Exhibitions

He has held solo shows in the urban art gallery The KEMP Gallery and had a hugely successful self funded pop-up exhibition in Dublin along with plans to show in both Berlin and California in 2020. Look out for the documentary "Pigsy'' directed by film maker Mike Andrews, which did the rounds of the film festivals in Britain and Ireland and was then screened in the prestigious Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club in Dublin, Ireland.

By Kemp

Redactions: Why are parts of the text blacked out?

Pigsy is much more comfortable painting than speaking about his work and the inspiration behind it. His work is a stream of consciousness and he goes into dark places of his psyche in order to create his art. As a result, he struggles to return to those places and explain verbally what the piece is about. PIGSY along with his curator Steve Kemp came up with a solution to this whereby Kemp would interview PIGSY once about each body of work and write up his interpretations of each piece. This is an exhausting and disturbing process for the artist but one that is necessary and once completed it releases him from the burden of speaking of the work again. Kemp’s text then acts as a buffer for the artist as he finds it much easier to convey Kemp’s words even though it is describing his work.

Redaction and personal passages

The redaction idea came about after the pair argued over the content of the interpretations. Pigsy felt some passages were too personal and didn’t want to share them with the world whereas Kemp felt every word was necessary to allow the viewer into the piece. The compromise was to leave all text in but redact the parts Pigsy wasn’t at ease with. The reader can see the legible parts but also knows that there is a little more to the art that’s left unexplained.

PIGSY’s “Non-Serviam”

Size: 1500mm W x 1500mm H Mixed Media on Canvas

This piece deals with the contradiction between the refusal to adhere to society’s rules and the loneliness and helplessness that are a result of this refusal. “Non-Serviam” (I Will Not Serve) is a bold statement of non-compliance and self sufficiency but looking deeper into the piece there is a call for help and the need for a guardian angel to save the artist. With the knowledge that almost every main character in Pigsy’s art is a self-portrait, there is the suggestion that the guardian angel required is his art and there exists a hope of self-salvation through it. Another clear indicator of the confusion caused by this paradox is the use of the word Malaika (an Islamic word for angel) on the angel’s chest, spelled wrong as Malaka (a Greek term for wanker).

PIGSY’s “Mo Laoch” (My Hero)

Size: 1500mm W x 1500mm H Mixed Media on Canvas

It is a rarity that a character in a Pigsy piece is not a version of the artist himself but in this piece the figure is that of famous Irish writer James Joyce. The inspiration for this painting came after watching a documentary on Joyce and the realised connection between him and the artist's uncle, also James, whom he never met but who's house he now owns. Was Joyce talking about people like James in his celebrated novel Dubliners ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛Could he have been a role model and mentor for Pigsy for he was also a poet and artist. The title "Mo Laoch" is Gaelic for "My Hero", a reference to the actual feeling for Joyce and the potentially stronger feeling for his uncle that, alas, never existed.

Note that Joyce holds the red spelling book, Pigsy's nemesis, an item depicted in many of his works to signify his struggle with dyslexia.

PIGSY’s “Cyberpunks”

Size: 1500mm H x 1200mm H Mixed Media on Canvas

Price: €15,500

“Cyberpunks” is Pigsy’s take on the movement formed in 1990, the beginning of the deep web and a decentralising power of the banks.

The crossed out 72 is both a cry for admittance and a confusion that the artist’s year of birth predates the aforementioned formation- “I was a cyberpunk before it even started, let me in”. Note the signature in the top right is Pigsy in binary.