John Halpin (b. 1964)After Patinir

This bizarre piece of scenery is, as the title indicates, a contemporary version of the fantastical concoctions of Joachim Patinir, a 16th century artist who was among the first to develop landscape as an independent art form. Working in the flat land of Flanders he painted in his studio vast imagined panoramas, devised partly from stones and vegetables as models. John Halpin has used computer imaging technology to develop a version based on the West Cork landscape, into which well-known local personalities in the art world have been electronically inserted (the figure poking with the stick is the artist Charlie Tyrell). While Patinir was creating almost world views at a time when horizons were literally expanding, Halpin has equally, if more self consciously, created an image suggestive of its age. In it nature meets technology, the 'high' values of art confront Hollywood, the real meets the virtual. Replaying the capacity of realistic art to create fictions it at the same time signals the artifice of its devices. Like many contemporary images addressing the art of the past it seems to aspire to recreate the aura of authenticity of that art, while at the same time questioning that authenticity. 

Text by William Gallagher, from UCC Modern Art Collection catalogue, 1998