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Ancient Gaelic Ghost after Completing a Tour of Duty Haunting the Border, Passing through a Decontamination Shower before Going Off Duty. Note the Easter Cactus (left) and How Brightly the Candle Continues to Burn

© the artist. Image credit: British Council Collection

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Notes

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Atkinson wrote of this work 'The drawing is number 11 in a series of 28 drawings called "Bunker Armagh". It is therefore approaching the halfway point of the series. Even at this point the series was beginning to display some distinct tendencies of having an inevitable logic towards its own termination. This was a tendency to move towards a completely blank surface without a single mark on it. Even at this stage (drawing no. 11) the reductive logic of an unmarked black surface as an appropriate simile for the "black hole" intractability of Anglo-Irish history seemed to beckon uncomfortably. I say "uncomfortably" because this direction seemed to re-cover traditional modernist ground – a kind of inverted "Malevichism". The series was always a struggle to retain figurative reference (for example, ghosts, candles, lilies – all symbols of potent Irish Republican romanticism).

British Council Collection

London

Title

Ancient Gaelic Ghost after Completing a Tour of Duty Haunting the Border, Passing through a Decontamination Shower before Going Off Duty. Note the Easter Cactus (left) and How Brightly the Candle Continues to Burn

Date

1985

Medium

pastel on black paper

Measurements

H 120 x W 107.5 cm

Accession number

P5508

Acquisition method

purchased from Sotheby's, Whitechaple auction, 1987

Work type

Drawing

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British Council Collection

British Council, 1 Redman Place, London, Greater London E20 1JQ England

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