Bryan Molloy - "Rugby #4 - Defender"

Rugby #4 - Defender
Oil on Canvas, US$ 910

Rugby #4 - Defender

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Details

Oil on Canvas

W: 1500mm x H: 1500mm x D: 101mm
W: 59" x H: 59" x D: 4"

Approx. Weight: 3kg

This work is unframed

Price

US$ 910

Scale

About "Rugby #4 - Defender"

Andrea's son James, runs across the back-field in the upper-left hand quarter of this painting, on his way to controlling the next sequence of events involving the rugby match at Mount St. Mary's University. This is my favorite, and also the last painted in the Rugby Series. The picture was so classic that I had to paint it. The big African-American (or whatever the accepted term is this week) goalie- and all the stereotypes and social implications of this, especially in light of Barack Obama's recent Presidential aspirations, were irresistable. Mud-covered jerseys, so dirty it was nearly impossible to paint more than brown, and the simple technical challenge this presented from a painter's standpoint was engaging to say the least. I think the field shows the rain and cleat-dug wallows, like small ponds about the field, marking every violent skirmish and every cleat-hole of every player involved in any particular struggle, (with minimal involvement of the brush and maximum emotion in slash and direction), like every word in every campaign slander and every debate and casual comment between Barack Obama and John McCain. They dig and strain to best one another in a classic Euro-American tradition. Like rugby, like Presidential campaigning; humans in play, they strength-train for us all. Who can tell in the end who is who, "just people", as my mother says; muddy all.