Belinda Ireland’s work explores the imagery of an imaginative childhood. Words by Mercedes Smith
I don’t know about you, but I find that most people struggle to be frank about their personal histories. I include myself in that category. I wouldn’t dream of sharing the intimacies of my childhood, or my teenage years, with anyone but my closest friends. In the arts though, unfiltered sharing is essential. History’s most important literature, lyrics and painting come from the artist’s decision to share their human experience in full: think of Jane Austen, Bernie Taupin and Mark Rothko, whose works have always resonated with the masses.
Belinda Ireland is an artist with that same frankness of expression. Her work, rendered in oil, pastel, or charcoal, is inspired by the vivid imaginary worlds she retreated to during childhood, where longings and fears mixed with the inspirational stories, symbols and icons of late 20th century culture. Combining personal memory with imagery from films, magazines and television, she builds curious, colourful scenes that reveal the depth of her inner life, and reflect changing attitudes to gender, race and relationships through her playful presentations of pop culture past. “My work is autobiographical in a sense,” says Belinda. “I suppose it does all start with me and how I saw the world back then. But as you age you see older things through a contemporary filter, and contemporary things through an older filter. Those are the ideas that I explore in my work. My starting point will often come from a single second in time. I might glimpse a telling moment between two people in the street, or see something on TV that triggers a childhood memory. I especially love old movies and magazines from the 60s and 70s. They can be full of adverts and imagery which seems startlingly outdated now: the moustachioed alpha male with his pipe and his whiskey glass; the housewife thrilling at a sink full of soap suds; that famous poster from the 80s, of a tennis player with her skirt hitched up in a revealing way. I have a dry sense of humour, so I find those images amusing and that shows up in my work.”
As well as pop culture, Belinda responds to the traditions of art history in her imagery, and to genre painting in particular. “I have always been fascinated by the way a painting can be grotesquely romantic,” she says. “Those things will inspire me, in a tongue-in-cheek way.” As a child of the 70s, I see endless parallels with my own life in Belinda’s work. She has a rich memory and imagination, and in sharing it, reminds me of the wonder and joy of my own youth. We discuss our childhoods - the now politically incorrect TV programmes, the classic pre-woke toys, and the bewildering romantic tensions of our teens. In that shared experience, her drawings and paintings say something about all of us born in the pre-2k era, and since. They are dark, joyful or comical notes on visual culture and our changing social perceptions. They also address the precious and terrifying innocence of youth. Often, Belinda places herself within the work, a young participant in the romance of a fantasy world. At other times she is absent, the off-set director of a highly curated, dreamlike scene. “Beginning each work is very much like being a film director,” she says. “I start with drawings and cut outs and arrange them like characters on a stage. As I paint, the scene can change though. It’s a fluid and unpredictable process.”
LEFT: Belinda Ireland CENTRE: Unwelcome News RIGHT: Dressing Room Crossover
In their creation, and in their final form, Belinda’s works are open ended, exploring narratives rather than stories, “because stories have a definite ending” she says. Is it wisdom, I ask, that these artworks present? “It could be,” she concedes, “because there comes a time when you’ve seen more, so you notice more. But I am certainly not interested in conveying a moral or political message in my work. I often ask myself whether I should be making a point about something, but I don’t really want to. I am simply presenting an idea, and I reference my own childhood and adolescence because that’s what I know best. I don’t always see what the cultural reflections might be, but my work prompts memories and associations in other people, and that’s what’s important.” This authenticity is what differentiates mundane from truly meaningful work. In art as in life, if you can overcome the fear of judgement and express yourself openly, it moves people. Your work becomes life affirming stuff. “I felt ambivalent about my practice for a long time, until I started drawing on ideas that were really personal,” says Belinda. “When my daughters were growing, for example, I began to see the way girls are sexualised in society, and as an artist I found that fascinating. That’s when I started to explore the hidden meaning behind people’s behaviours and the way we interact.”
LEFT: Bunny Girls RIGHT: Dreams and Imagination
Structurally, Belinda’s works are complex. Her use of light is drawn from both 17th century painting and 20th century cinematography, and her approach to colour flattens the image into a kind of photo negative, a cats-eye of shifting visual information. The haze of colour in each work adds greatly to its ambiguity and allure. I consider this in the context of Laid Back on The Brink, a Gauguin style surf-movie scene that draws my eye amongst the cowboys, circus acts and period drama detailing of her other works. The more I look, the more immersed I become. “I like to play around with colour and shape in an abstracted way,” says Belinda, “especially with my pastel works, so that it draws your eye but doesn’t necessarily link to the image. I use colour to guide a viewer into and around the work. It’s a real battle when I am painting, to be abstract and not figurative with colour, and to emphasise shape. I am aware that people have to work quite hard when they look at my work, because the colour can be monochromatic, it can be very close in value, and I like that interplay of subtlety.”
LEFT: Laid Back on the Brink CENTRE: Swoon RIGHT: Study
Any references to societal judgement, discrimination or outdated perceptions are equally subtle. Put simply, these works are an unfiltered visual memoir, a record of the things that have passed through Belinda’s retina in her lifetime. “Should the work be deliberately deep?” asks Belinda. “I think if my meaning became too intense, that might kill it. Viewers must be free to react positively or negatively to my work, depending on their individual experiences and point of view.” To artists, a negative response is as valuable as a positive response. That’s what art is for, to trigger debate and conversation, and to connect us in our shared experience of being.
