Paul Nugent

BA Fine Art

Part-time Lecturer

Paul Nugent is an artist and educator in Fine Art Painting at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. One of Nugent’s areas of research is the history of Jean Martin Charcot’s clinic of neurology at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. ‘A series of medical photographs produced by Charcot in early 1880s as Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière seems to mark uncannily a particular kind of social “disturbance” ‘. (Spectral Evidence, The Photography of Trauma, Ulrich Baer 2002) Nugent has exhibited internationally including The Shanghai Gallery of Modern Art & the Millennium Monument Museum, Beijing, The Kerava Art Museum Finland, The Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador and a solo project at VOLTA New York, Imagine Ireland programme NY. Nugent’s work was included in Trove at Irish Museum of Modern Art. He was awarded a residency and exhibition at the Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris France. His work is represented in the IMMA collection. He has been the recipient of Visual Arts Bursaries and participated on the Arts Council of Ireland selection panel. Nugent formerly lectured in painting at the Crawford College of Art and Design and Limerick School of Art and Design.

PAUL NUGENT
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

 

2017   MANY WORLDS

            Centre Culturel Irlandais

            Paris France.

2017   OBSCURA

            Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

2017   GOLDEN RECORD

            Galway Arts Centre

2015   NIGHTSHADE

            Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

2015   FINDERS and KEEPERS

            State of the art collection Red Rua

2015   VOLTA BASEL

            Switzerland

2015   ART BRUSSELS Belgium

2015   I SEE A DARKNESS Curated by Davey Moore,

            Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

2014   TROVE, Curated by Dorothy Cross,

            Irish Museum of Irish Art.

2014   IN DARKNESS LET ME DWELL

            Solstice Art Centre

2014   INSTANT CHRUSH

            Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

2014   BOYLE ARTS FESTIVAL

            Curated by Patrick Murphy

2014   UNFOLD

            From the OPW collection

            The Stormont Estate Belfast.

2013   PRELUDE SPEAKER

            Contemporary Castle town House

            Curated by Dawn Williams

2013   RHA Invited Artist Annual show

2012   LAST Douglas Hyde Gallery Dublin

2011   The Painter, the Draughtsman, the Dealer and their lovers,

            VOGES Gallery,

            Frankfurt, Germany

2011   VOLTA NEW YORK Solo presentation

2010   WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS A SECRET

            Irish Museum of Modern Art

            Curated by Margarita Molloy

2010   INVISIBLE Black Church Print Studio

            Curated by Margaret O’ Brien, Oliver Dowling, John Graham

2010   VOLTA6 Basel Switzerland

2010   REGARDING PAINTING

            Curated by Helen Carey

            Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

2009   REMEMBRANCE,

            KERAVA, ART MUSEUM Finland

2009   REMEMBRANCE

            Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

2009   TERROR & SUBLIME Art in the age of anxiety

            Crawford Art Gallery Cork

            Curated by Peter Murphy

2009   TULCA Galway Museum

            Curated by Helen Carey

2009   EXPLORING A NEW DONATION

            Irish Museum of Modern Art Dublin

2008   REPRESENTING ART IN IRELAND

            Fenton Gallery Cork,

2008   IN THE MINDS EYE

            OPW Collection

            Different locations,

2008   THERE NOT THERE

            Crawford Art Gallery Cork

            Curated by Dawn Williams

2007   VIGIL Temple Bar Gallery Dublin

2005   VIEWS FROM AN ISLAND

            Shanghai Gallery of Modern Art &

            The Millennium Monument Museum Beijing

2005   NEIGHBOURS

            Art Gallery of Newfoundland & Labrador Canada

            Curated by Catherine Marshall

2005   RE-IMAGINING IRELAND

            University of Virginia USA

            Curated by Jill Hartz & Susan Bacik

My research into the Salpêtrière Hospital and the Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière began while on a residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.

‘ A series of medical photographs produced by Jean Martin Charcot in early 1880s uniquely qualifies as inadvertent previews for the “disturbance to civilization” that Barthes considered intrinsic to all photography ‘

(Spectral Evidence The Photography of Trauma, Ulrich Baer 2002).

Charcot is best known for his work on hypnosis and hysteria. The patients at the Salpêtrière Hospital were methodically photographed, providing skeptical colleagues with visual proof of hysteria’s specific form. Sigmund Freud was a student of Charcot’s and the images of hysterics in the Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière had a profound influence on him and his development of psychoanalysis. Freud’s analogy  pertaining to the negative plate being like the subconcious and the positive print being like the conscious, reinforced the links between hysteria and the use of photography as proof of hysteria’s existence.

Using b/w 35mm negative film I photographed extensively the interior space of the asylum chapel. The asylum chapel is architecturally positioned at the centre of the Salpêtrière Hospital and remains virtually unchanged since its completion in 1603, unlike the surrounding hospital that has now been modernized.

The b/w negatives were used in my work titled Séance (8 music stands- 8 slide-viewers- 8 b/w negatives mounted on slides). Séance 2011 explores Freud’s idea of the negative being analogous to the subconscious.

I also used the negatives as primary source material for a series of paintings titled Obscura 2017

The paintings map a sense of place where psychoanalysis had its inception.

  • Paul nugent, obscura ll. 2017 oil on panel

    Paul nugent, obscura ll. 2017 oil on panel

  • Paul nugent, hysteria 2017 oil on panel

    Paul nugent, hysteria 2017 oil on panel

  • Seance 4 2017 oil on panel

    Seance 4 2017 oil on panel

  • Seance 2 b w 35mm negative

    Seance 2 b w 35mm negative

  • Seance 1 b w 35 mm negative

    Seance 1 b w 35 mm negative

  • Seance, 8, modified music stands,8 .slide viewers,8. b w negetives mounted on slides, 2011.

    Seance, 8, modified music stands,8 .slide viewers,8. b w negetives mounted on slides, 2011.