Conor McCreedy

Conor Mccreedy creates richly textured monochromatic abstract splash and figurative paintings in his trademarked colour Mccreedyblue. Inspiration comes from his experiences, growing up in Southern Africa, a landscape blessed with brilliant cobalt skies that meet the powerful Indian and Atlantic oceans, filled with endless shades of blue. Art historians have described the Mccreedyblue colour as having an "unspeakable effect" discovering a distinctive emotive power and clarity in the materials he uses, capturing the spiritual connection between the artist and his creation.

LIMELIGHT SERIES

This series of work by Mccreedy uses light tubing that is all handmade in the unique Murano glass. These artworks are bent to mimic the artist's handwriting and match his blue coloured pigment. The handmade glass is moulded into words that allow the subconscious and the conscious to play on each other due to the words relation to the colour blue. These neon lighting artworks are read by the conscious mind and completed by the subconscious mind. Therefore, when the word “blood” is glowing and on display it is read by both mind states as “blue blood.” There is no limit to what medium an artist can use to express themselves and for Conor Mccreedy (b.1987). The process of creating these neon art pieces for him often begins with exploring a message, usually a thought or a feeling.  

Neon lights are commonly used to make attractive business signs and are mostly preferred for outdoor use especially at night. The colourful array of neon light options makes it a creative marketing tool as lights are used to illuminate an underlying message or image. The term Limelight (also known as Drummond light or calcium light) is a type of stage lighting once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illumination is created when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of quicklime (calcium oxide). The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and Cando luminescence. Although it has long since been replaced by electric lighting, the term has nonetheless survived, as someone in the public eye is still said to be "in the limelight". The actual lights are called "limes", a term which has been transferred to electrical equivalents like Neon Lights, Neon is a noble gas chemical element and an inert gas that is a minor component of the Earth's atmosphere. It was discovered in 1898 by the British scientists William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers. When Ramsay and Travers had succeeded in obtaining pure neon from the atmosphere, they explored its properties using an "electrical gas-discharge" tube that was similar to the tubes used today for neon signs.  

Mccreedy’s neon lights are unique. Many artists have used neon lights as a medium since the 1960s but while many preferred to use moulded letters and neutral writing, Conor Mccreedy stands out because he has chosen to use his own handwriting in combination with powerful statements. It is ironic how the artist uses simple every day words or phrases to provoke feelings and thoughts in the audience connecting it to the colour blue. By expressing his own emotions, thoughts, and aspirations, he connects to the soul of the observers. This is the role that art should play in people’s lives and finding the best medium to achieve it is the greatest hurdle for many. By incorporating poetry, mystery, colour and light into an art piece, the artist immortalises himself in the work he does. Art critics will admit that using one’s own handwriting is rather daring but also a way to stamp personality and individuality in all pieces created.Each piece comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist with that specific word written on the certificate. Each artwork is individually installed with its own transmitter and neatly assembled on the allocated display space. Mccreedy has also expanded the concept and even takes it into creating; proverbs, quotes, symbols, drawings and even made up sentences. 

The Zurich-based artist Conor Mccreedy is one of the most outstanding new influential painters of our time. As part of his complex and nuanced approach to painting and its subject matter, the artist makes reference to images and experiences. Characteristic of his paintings is the extraordinary mix of freedom and intimacy. In today’s digital world, in which imagery is produced by the simple click of a button; the physicality of the human movement in Mccreedy’s output is testament to the essence and intense energy one endures in the act of painting. The artist creates his distinctively monochromatic paintings with gestural brushstrokes and large-scale splashes, sometimes trees and even people in a brilliant signature blue pigment known as “Mccreedyblue”. His paintings often evoke places between the real and the imaginary inspired by adventures. Disciplined by the symbolism of colour and focused on the emotive power of materials, the artist seeks to create a sense of spirituality and the sublime in his work. Like his Colour Field painting predecessors, some of Mccreedy’s paintings are intentionally left untitled to resist simple stylistic categorization. Mccreedy’s influences range from artists such as Klein, Richter, da Vinci and Picasso, to the ultramarine oceans and skies of his South African childhood. Mccreedy is the modern master of blue.