Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 21st October 2019

80 55 Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (1932-2016) Bird Cage signed top right and titled oil on board 69 x 63.5cm (27.25 x 25in) Provenance: Emer Gallery, Belfast (label verso); Private Collection €30,000-50,000 (£26,548-44,247) The first time I clapped my eye on ‘Bird Cage’ in Basil Blackshaw’s studio I couldn’t contain myself with curiosity. “What prompted the bird cage Basil? I asked. He hesitated and continued “well you know Eamonn an awful lot of what I do is psychological.” I knew exactly what Blackshaw meant. He was returning to a theme which he espoused more and more in the later phase of his oeuvre - his struggle with the plight of addiction in his case alcohol which plagued him from the Seventies off and on. This illness, (and I am mindful that Basil referred to himself as a recovering alcoholic) gave rise to a series of works ‘Corner’ and the Wall series etc. Bird Cage was made a short time after Basil returned home from Sister Concilio’s rehabilitation home outside Newry where he had spent several spells recovering down the years. He often regaled me with wonderful and indeed exaggerated word pictures of the rare beings he had come across during his rehabilitation. Vis á vis ‘Bird Cage’ what fascinates me about this work apart from the paucity of detail and architecture is the uncertainty of the locus of the bird in the cage .Is it in the cage or halfway out of the cage capable of escaping yet not escaping? Isn’t this the fate of any addict for much of the time? I am prosecuting this thesis not at a whim but ‘the human condition’ was a frequent topic of discussion between Basil and myself during which he questioned the meaning of life. As I stated earlier the psychological dimension of the artist persisted in the Wall series of works. The walls were a metaphor for Blackshaw’s mental condition and were used as a scaffolding upon which to hang his philosophy. He drew my attention to the four walls surrounding us in his home, the stone walls outside the house and fanning out from that the hills and mountains all physical barriers but Blackshaw talked of other hurdles housed in the mind, hurdles in terms of, unquenchable desires for drugs, drink, lust, greed wealth etc. ‘Corner’ 2003 (Plate 200 Blackshaw edited by Eamonn Mallie) brought this thesis to the next level demonstrating a sense of being trapped through depression flowing from any or some of the aforementioned conditions .Viewed at face value ‘Bird Cage’ is charming chiming with Blackshaw’s later work minimalist in its approach, using a limited range of colour to capture the airiness of the space occupied by the cage, yet symbolising the artist’s daily struggle in dealing with forces possibly seeking to control him. Eamonn Mallie, September 2019