Painting the Memories Left by Disaster: Richard Hearns’s 'Pompeii' [fn Art Snap]

[Financial News] "What interests me are the things that remain: traces and marks, absence, and the human impulse to remember and the resilience to recover."Richard Hearns, who presented his work through Artbooth Gallery at Kiaf SEOUL earlier this month, explained the ideas behind his painting 'Pompeii' in a recent interview with Financial News. Hearns, an Irish painter born in Lebanon, submitted the work to 'Ground Zero 360 Remembrance,' a memorial exhibition marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks at the New York City Fire Museum.■ Memories of Disaster and the Passage of Time in the Landscape'Pompeii' began with the fragility of structures built by humans and the memories left behind in places. The connection between the disaster that buried the ancient city and the 9/11 attacks lies not so much in the events themselves as in what remains afterward. "I am not trying to depict 9/11," he said. "Through color, surface, and gesture, I wanted to approach absence and resilience."
Rather than explain the tragedy or offer an answer, Hearns seeks to create a place where viewers can pause for a moment. "Painting can transcend language," he said, adding, "Sometimes the deepest emotions reside in what is felt but left unsaid."
This approach is also reflected in the way he engages with landscapes. Hearns lives and works in The Burren in County Clare, Ireland, where he encounters limestone formed over vast stretches of time and traces of human presence left among it. Instead of transferring the landscape directly onto the canvas, he allows the sensations experienced there physically and the power of nature to permeate his paintings.
The process of layering paint incorporates time spent covering, revealing, erasing, and returning. "As in a landscape, something that was there before remains," he explained. "Rather than reproducing a place, I am trying to understand and convey what it means to live in a place that holds so much time."
His solo exhibition 'No Ruined Stones,' which explores geological time alongside human life, runs at Cadogan Gallery in London, United Kingdom, through October 3.
■ Abstract Forms Shaped by Bodily Movement and ColorHis brushwork also reflects his experience training in martial arts. His sense of balance, weight, breathing, and movement has developed into the physical language of his paintings. Each morning, he moves his body, writes, and meditates before beginning work. Once he starts painting, however, he surrenders himself to intuition.
He does not decide on the colors in advance, either. The same limestone can appear gray, blue, or almost purple depending on the weather and time of day. Green intensified by rain may disappear into the landscape under different light. Hearns focuses not on individual colors but on the relationships between them. A subdued color, he explains, can suddenly make another color shine.
Hearns also expressed hope for connecting with Korean audiences. Although his work is not based on Eastern traditions, he believes viewers can find a shared intuition in simplicity and movement, silence and gesture. "The most successful paintings are those that are felt deeply," he said.
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