We recently shared the news that Galway-based artist Declan O’Rourke is set to release his seventh album ‘Arrivals’ on February 5th 2021 via eastwest records. As we saw with lead single ‘The Harbour‘, it’s an emotionally rich album and we are promised themes that are both personal and political. This is his first release on which he has used a producer, namely, singer songwriter and musician Paul Weller.
His latest offering from ‘Arrivals‘ is In Painter’s Light, a stripped-back gentle acoustic number steeped in a beautiful quietude which is accompanied by an animated video in which an individual rows, dreamlike through the artwork of the great masters. Like ‘The Harbour’ which touched on the artistic creativity of the song writer…this turns to another passion.
It is based around a truth we all know of but seldom acknowledge, best described by Declan as the “Best way to kill the thing you love, Is if you never even try”. That love is painting and how can you not fall in love with his vision of one-day rising with the dawn to “Mix colours for my canvas through the silence of the morning, In painters light”.
Declan says:
“I wrote this as an affirmation to myself, to not lose sight of a long-held artistic ambition. In the process, it also became an exploration into what motivated me to follow the path of the Artist in life. But it took a few other twists and turns I wasn’t expecting too.
It was great to work with Toby Mortimer, who created a beautiful animated film to accompany the song, encompassing some elements common to both of our journeys.”
Of course, you could say it’s in the blood…O’Rourke’s Grandfather was Michael Killeen whose work was exhibited last year at The Courthouse Gallery in Kinvara, south Galway. His paintings depicted life in the area around the 1930s including the beautiful traditional fishing boats, Galway Hookers, on Kinvara Bay (depicted in the video by Toby Mortimer) and Dunguaire Castle before its restoration. There is an air of mystery around his paintings as he left Kinarva when he was just in his 20’s and never returned. Last year’s exhibition of his ‘paintings from afar’ was described as a story of the re-emergence of an artist, a long-lost son of Kinvara.
You can’t listen and not feel impassioned by the sincerity of his words as I’m sure most of us have had childish dreams left unpursued, but here we’re left in no doubt that those “dreams of exhibitions” will not remain just dreams.
“One day I’ll be an artist. I will rise up with the dawn”.
Pre-order on CD & LP now: https://lnk.to/DOR-ArrivalsAY
Photo Credit: Lawrence Watson