© Danny Mooney.

Old work, new beginnings…

Self-portrait with brush © Danny Mooney.

Inspired by a recent studio move, Danny Mooney’s Looking back @ 50 exhibition reviews many years of his work. Brought together for the first time in public are key works from every stage of Mooney’s artistic development. HOT’s Erica Smith takes a backwards look…

It was at Coastal Currents 2008, when, almost by accident, I wandered into Danny Mooney’s tiny front room in Norman Road. At the time he was painting aboriginal inspired abstracts. They were interesting, and aesthetically pleasing, though they did make me question the ethics of ‘plagiarising’ aboriginal art. I bought an aboriginal-style pebble painted by one of his daughters, which I still have today.

© Danny Mooney.

Since then, I have often seen Mooney’s artworks around town – in people’s private collections, in Arts Forum group shows – and even a neon drawing of our Queen, commissioned by lighting designer Philip Oakley. He has made three-dimensional drawings in wire, life-size full-length painted self-portraits and abstract images, both on – and with – all manner of materials.

Currently he is making iPad paintings – simple landscapes of our beaches and sea. Some of them may be used for a new seafront signage project. To balance the clean digital, he’s been getting messy with oil paintings on found and collaged objects. My favourite of his recent pieces is a landscape representation of Bottle Alley painted in oil on collaged canvases.

Bottle Alley © Danny Mooney.

Mooney trained at Goldsmiths and London Guildhall University in London. His work has been exhibited in the UK and America, and is represented in collections in the UK, America, Switzerland, Japan and China. It will be a treat to see his thoughtful retrospective at the Memorial Gallery in Hastings Town Centre.

Danny Mooney: Looking back @ 50
Friday 11 – Friday 25 July, 9am–5pm weekdays, or by appointment.
The Memorial Art Gallery, 2nd Floor, 7 Cambridge Road, Hastings TN34 1DJ (entrance opposite the Electric Stag). Tel: 01424 422784.