Blastwalls

What I found amazing about the base, well one of the things- were these structures that built everywhere and I mean everywhere!!! Inside the buildings, outside the buildings and all over the grounds. I was intrigued by them and to me they were like sculptures with their intricate brick work. I was to find out later that these were the ‘blastwalls’, built to withstand major explosions (in this case, it would have been the mortar attacks) and to protect the people and buildings within. There is a great article here about fortifications and Operation Banner.

Here you can see the blastwalls below, that I took from within Bessbrook Army Base.

The Blastwalls series had began in my mind…

I had linen boards that I had been previously experimenting on with ink and water and the water had warped the linen, making it curl up and come away from it’s backing. I liked this idea of decay, creeping into the work as it fitted in with the feelings, I had of the blastwalls- how eventually they too would crumble if they were hit enough by mortar attacks. I cut some of them up and I loved how you could see the strands of linen, falling away from the board. I didn’t feel they were quite finished though and that is when the idea of float mounting them onto another painted surface (oil on paper) came into my head. This is where I can now see how the colours and the designs from inside the army base managed to infiltrate into the work especially the reds, blues and yellows. Depending on what battalion was being housed in the base at the time, they painted their colours everywhere in stripes especially along pipes and radiators.

I had old, used, archival frames that I knew would just finish them off nicely. I took the glass out of them as I wanted the viewer to see the vivid colours first hand and to be able see the warped linen boards up close. AND so, there you have it- the story of the Blastwalls and here they are below in all their glorious colour!!!

Apologies for the bad cropping of some of them!!!