Phil Kelly - In Ómós - En Memoria - In Memory
Phil Kelly – Dathadóir/Pintor/Painter
Born September 7th, 1950; died August 3rd, 2010
An inspirational light has gone out in the world with the passing of Mexico City based Irish painter Phil Kelly. Mo chara, mi cuate, my mate is now ar slí na fírinne - on the final path of truth and enlightenment. What a privilege to be able to call a man who was an artistic genius a mate.
The official cause of his death was renal failure but there were previous complications.
Like Mexicans, our Celtic belief is that we are bigger than death itself. However the physical wrench of death is not to be gainsaid and must be pondered and celebrated in all its mysteries. A corrupt priesthood may come and go but we still have our artists, both physically and spiritually.
After a holiday in Mexico in the year 2000, I approached an RTÉ executive about the possibility of making a film about this wonderful painter and image poet Phil Kelly.
My heart bleeds to think that I never made that film whilst Phil was alive. This wonderfully vibrant human being and artist had promised me complete access to his catalogue, his current obsessions and to his private space. With full support, I might add of his wife Ruth Munguia.
Phil was even so generous as to send unpublished sketches and scraps of text that he was using as motivators in his endless interpretations of urban life in Mexico City. Not for a moment because he necessarily agreed with what I was going to write or film but because he gave me trust and dignity as a fellow artist to create in my own way and to interpret his work as I saw fit. In my experience, there are very few people in what is called the professions, who are so generous and flaithiúlach (open handed). Of course, such generosity on Phil’s part stems from an utter confidence in his own abilities.
Phil Kelly’s heart was huge but also wise.
Those of you, dear readers, who are able to read even a modicum of Spanish will see from the Mexican reaction to his death that Phil's human empathy shone out from his work and his personality. He was a - “hombre bueno y un gran artista, generoso y apasionado”
Even with my shamefully poor knowledge of Mexican Art as a whole, I can see that Phil Kelly carries a tradition forward that comes from Frida Kahlo (intense vibrant colouring) and Diego Rivera (crowd scenes and murals). But Phil also stands comparison with Jack B Yeats, Georges Braque and also I would argue Francis Bacon (I would have loved to have been able to explore this latter question in my film).
However, Phil Kelly is firmly modern in the urban speed of his eye and the singular impression of life that he creates and, in my view, he goes further with his prodigious output to reach the heights that Picasso achieved. This view is widely accepted in the arts world. See this excellent Spanish language review for example by Eva Usi of Phil Kelly's 2008 exhibition in Dublin. For this and many other reasons, Phil’s passing should have been national news here in Ireland, just as it was in Mexico.
With regards to the RTÉ executive that I approached about our film proposal, In keeping with a tradition in Irish Film and Television, his experience of actually writing and directing films of any description is miniscule. He rejected our proposal as not being “feasible”.
When it became clear that RTÉ was not going to back a major film about him, Phil didn’t just shrug his shoulders and give up. I wrote to him saying that it would make a very good book and Phil then wrote a letter to the Arts Council and here is an extract from it:
“Paul’s take on my work is fascinating for me and, where I prefer to let my art speak for itself, he gives a vivid verbal picture of how the similarities in Irish and Mexican cultures can be seen perhaps more clearly through art.”
(Phil Kelly letter to Arts Council – Mexico City, February 21st, 2004)
It goes almost without saying that our proposal was rejected.
I cannot stress strongly enough the profound effect Phil Kelly's art manages to achieve.
PHIL KELLY- VIVE - PHIL KELLY LIVES
In order that Cic Saor readers may get the chance to see more of Phil Kelly’s work and the bells it rang in my head after my visit to Mexico, I intend very shortly to post the results of our collaboration on to the Cic Saor website. The piece is physically too large, and also too broad in its philosophical approach, to be simply inserted into a blog item.
It was officially entitled Viva Mexico/Viva Irlanda but has now been rechristened as PHIL KELLY- VIVE- PHIL KELLY LIVES. At the very least, readers will enjoy the introduction and the presentation of a greater number of Phil's paintings. The narrative is deliberately episodic and can be read in that way.
In effect, PHIL KELLY- VIVE is the screenplay and/or dialogue that I gave to RTÉ in the hope that it would encourage the “national broadcaster” to give me the funds to make what would have been a remarkable record of one of our greatest ever artists. I do, after all, have something of a good track record in this kind of film making.
I look at RTÉ's output. Its shamelessly derivative formats that died slow deaths in North America a decade ago; its game shows; its alleged reality TV; its mega series on minor politicians like Des O’Malley and yet another documentary recently propagating the myth of oppressed Protestants in Ireland and its just deja vú beat me beat me all over again.
It is true that the Irish language arts show Cúrsaí Ealaíne once did a feature on Phil Kelly in 1997 but Cúrsaí Ealaíne has since been binned and the piece itself was no more than a short insert; well meaning, worthy and dull. It had no cojones. Cojones were neutered in RTÉ a long time ago - relegated to sport and the odd gem that manages to shine through like the excellent Chavez documentary. Is this why Phil Kelly was never celebrated on film in his own country even in a situation when he acted as an artistic ambassador for Ireland in a place like Mexico?
Perhaps Phil was just not cachet enough.
The man had no airs and graces and loved Mexico City as the startling unpredictable place it is. Even his painting techniques and approach were avowedly physical - a literal labour of love, where he often painted with his hands. There is a very short but brilliant interview with him that provides a nice snapshot of his outlook on life in Mexico here - Voices In The City.
Moreover, Phil was a known socialite in a city of socialites, an impressionist rebel (on his own terms) who preferred inventiveness to rules. He also loved women - the shape and feel of women and their betimes monstrousness as expressed in his art. Those cojones again and Phil had balls to burn. For all his quiet ways, Phil Kelly would think nothing of standing up to robbers or a carjacker if the notion took hold of him. His instinct (a typical and venerable Irish trait) was to stand up to bullies even though he was so gentle himself. To me he was a worker hero and like many of us he was frequently told that he was a nothing, a nobody, and would never make it but he Chumbawumbered (I Get Knocked Down - I get Up Again) and Kept On Trucking (sometimes literally).
The key thing, was that the so called common people (me included) were always comfortable with him and he in turn gained great inspiration from them. He didn’t start making a living from painting until he was in his forties and worked in a variety of jobs that would leave pupils from his former English public school (Rugby) in a state of trauma just at the thought of having to do them.
As much as I often criticise the Irish Times, it must be said that there is an excellent obituary on Phil Kelly in that very paper and it can be read here for those who wish to know a bit more about his background.
Readers will see from the PHIL KELLY- VIVE screenplay that Phil brought myself and my companion to an ornate bar just off the Zócalo in the centre of Mexico city and so began an odyssey that officially lasted a day (I know this because I hazily remember boarding a plane the following day) but it is a journey I am still making because of what Phil Kelly revealed to us that day. Over the first tequila and cerveza at half past ten in the morning, Phil and I cemented our friendship by exchanging our experiences of being forced to go to schools that we hated and which hated us.
El Ángel – The Angel
I assumed that I had come to understand a little of Mexican culture having spent a month touring around parts of this vast country but as our Phil Kelly odyssey progressed that day I realised that I could never have put my impressions to paper and envisaged a film without Phil Kelly's insights. As one of many examples, when Phil spoke of his love of The Angel - the iconic Ángel de Independencia in downtown Mexico DF, it was as if the fabric of city was mapped out in his head.
As we travelled in a taxi to one of his favourite restaurants, Phil would whip out his instamatic camera and snap fruit sellers, bystanders or market stalls; all the time revealing the city as he spoke. Not just revealing it but rebuilding it via his own inspirations – an angel rising above the sprawl, or a morose woman emerging from buildings, or maybe just the tracks of zinging tracers from cars as if they had been shot on a slow shutter speed at night. The way I had wanted to do it in our proposed film.
Also he gave me lots of brotherly advice - “when you are naturally funny like you are – throw that into the mix”.
I’ll finish this introduction by passing my condolences and those of Cic Saor aficionados to Phil’s wife Ruth and their two children Ana Elena and Maria José who showed us great hospitality as part of Phil’s tour of the city he adopted and the city which in turn adopted him.
Ruth was kind enough to provide me with more details about the causes of Phil’s death but I will leave it to her good self to decide whether she wants to publicise this information further. Ruth also tells me that there will be a homage day on the 2nd. of September this year and Phil’s ashes will be spread in the City of Mexico, Oaxaca and possibly Ireland at some point.
He always wondered why we, here at home, wouldn’t paint our pedestrian bridges bight yellow. Maybe we could do that to honour his memory. It would be a well deserved tribute.
Suaimhneas Dé go síoraigh ar a anam
I will provide the link to PHIL KELLY VIVE once it has been posted and send a group mail shot to that effect.
Un abrazo fuerte
Pablo