Painting Plymouth: Kieran Walsh prepares for his solo exhibition

Ahead of his upcoming show at GROW, Kieran Walsh discusses his art and processes with community reporter Jessica Warby.

I met with Kieran on a sunny October day in Royal William Yard, making my way to Ocean Studios as the setting autumn sun reflected on the glass of the ex-royal navy buildings. After showing me up to his current studio space there, we sat in the middle of the room and by my feet lay a fresh sketch of Everest Flavours in Plymouth Market, one of Kieran’s favourite places to eat. He says the visuals of the food stall, with its stools located around the kitchen like a bar, make it an interesting space that he would like to see if he could get a painting from. Artwork lines the walls and the majority of the floor in the nineteenth-century building. An Aladdin’s cave of prolific work production.

Kieran, who grew up between Essex and London, has lived in Plymouth for around thirteen years. He originally came to the city to study fine art. “Even the decision to study fine art was kind of a last-minute swap from something else. So, my time here and kind of growing up here and living here has gone hand-in-hand with actually realising that I love painting and drawing.”

Kieran talks me through the portraits that line his studio, ones that will likely be in the show. His most frequent sitters are Anna, his girlfriend, and Harman, a co-worker turned close friend who has sat roughly once a week for the last two years. Ashanti Hare, a fellow Devon-based artist and James, a student turned friend, are two other faces that line the walls. “I guess they all relate to significant chapters and events of my life, but I don't think about them in terms of my biography too much. I'm just interested in painting them.”

Two books that have shaped the way he works are Roy Oxlade’s Art and Instinct, in addition to Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations. They both had a similar ethos around an intuitive, direct, and unrefined response to the subject matter in art. As for why Kieran is drawn to traditional painting mediums. “I'm interested in seeing what it looks like when it comes out of me, and it comes out of this place and time.”

He has found that Plymouth is a subject matter suited to his artistic concerns. “I mean, geographically it's really interesting because you've got kind of city centre, suburban sprawl, and Central Park.” This is in addition to Dartmoor “looming over it” and the sea within close proximity. Even the more run-down areas of Plymouth speak to its history. “I'm looking at a painting of the market building, which I think is actually a really interesting building, and those kinds of markets are getting quite rare these days, but we still have one and a really good one” The culture shift between being a uni town in addition to a naval town brings further dimensions of interest into the Ocean City. 

For over ten years, Kieran has painted ‘en plein air’ within Plymouth. Sometimes it’s focused in terms of what he wants to capture, other times it’ll be a case of walking around and drawing. “I mean, drawing on the street, you're always going to get people coming up, sometimes it can actually be really nice.”  He points to a piece that shows the mini roundabout joining King Street and Octagon Street in Stonehouse. “There were quite a lot of people coming up with this one, and this one bloke was on the phone, and he walked past shouting, ‘Geddon me chavvy! That is a sick painting!’ And he's on the phone to his mate and he's like, ‘God, there is some nutcase drawing in Stonehouse.”

I asked him what had prompted the show to come around now. He explains that he is about to make the move from Plymouth to Barcelona with his girlfriend Anna. “This show in particular I've had in my mind for the past couple of years, and I've kind of been working away towards it, and it's sort of been floating in the background.” The move meant that if he wanted to exhibit his work, he had to get it in motion now. Finally, the exhibition has found a home in GROW with its opening night on the 23rd October 17:00-20:00 and it is running from the 24th until 25th October 12:30-16:30.

As for moving away from the place his art practice has been based. Kieran says he’ll miss the solitude and space you can find in Plymouth. In addition to the people, the variety of food that is available, and even the weather. He hopes this exhibition will “speak to people about our shared environment. Just, you know, that kind of day-to-day grind of walking around and living here. I hope that people see how much I've put in and what I've invested.”