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Street Fame Graffiti

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Fame - A graffiti documentary: Miami Style

The Bogside Artists

THE PEOPLE’S GALLERY

And  

THE BOGSIDE ARTISTS

Trevor Philips

In a statement on 19 Jul 1997 the IRA announced another "complete cessation of military operations" This came 15 months after the ending of their previous ceasefire on 9 Feb 96. 0n 10 April 1998 came the Belfast Agreement, or The Good Friday Agreement, as it became known, and the end of armed conflict. After three decades of sporadic killing sorties that affected both Ireland and Engl and that saw some 3,600 people killed and over 30,000 thousands more injured the people of Northern Ireland started out on the road to build a brand new future for themselves and their children.

 Nowadays, the exponential growth of the tourist industry is more than helping them in that direction. More people are visiting the North of Ireland than ever before. Certainly a great deal more than the years prior to The Troubles when visitors were so few the tourist board did not even bother to keep statistics. Besides the obvious attractions such as the scenery, the cuisine, the superb golfing links and fishing grounds it is the history of the province itself that draws people in.  Leading the attractions in this regard are the murals of Derry and Belfast with the former, thanks mainly to their overtly non-sectarian content, holding sway in the affections of the visitor.

 In Derry, the "maiden city", the huge murals of The Bogside Artists stand as dark sentinels to this history of pain and conflict. There are 12 murals in all situated along Rossville Street in the heart of The Bogside. The last of them was completed this July 2008. It is a tribute to John Hume. Bono of U2 fame sent a congratulatory note to be read out at the unveiling in which he compared John Hume’s vision to Martin Luther King’s.”We have a saying here at U2, whatever John Hume asks, just say yes,”  he said.  Present was John Hume himself and his wife

Pat and various representatives of political parties. Ex-Bishop Edward Daly gave a stirring speech that highlighted the achievement of The Bogside Artists in “giving The Bogside an identity and a product to bring security and prosperity to our city."

Tom Kelly, his brother William and their mutual friend Kevin Hasson have been working on their murals project since August 1994. Older and wiser now, they see their work as commemorative. Theirs is a public art after all, dealing with subject matter that goes far beyond mere aesthetics or the values of the dilettante. Their work is distanced greatly from its Belfast counterpart which they see as propaganda. “Our work is designed to educate, commemorate and edify.” explains Tom Kelly. “In the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, a wound must be cleaned out and examined before it will heal. It is the unexamined wound that festers and finally poisons. Our work shows the wounds." This determination to tell their own story is what drives the three men known world-wide as The Bogside Artists.

"It is not graffiti", Kevin Hasson points out. “This is real art done by the people and for the people. That's what makes it authentic. That's what gives it meaning in a world where meaning has all but been destroyed by ambition and the greed for money. It honours our past. The People’s Gallery commemorates the real price paid by an oppressed people for simple democratic rights. If this is not to be commemorated, what is?" 

                       In a sphere of activity where the ego can get carried away, The Bogside Artists have found a way of working that eschews self-aggrandizement.  This is rare enough by itself because they are very much three individuals with differing points of view.  In their endeavour to communicate a shared truth, they discuss at length what has to be expressed before going on to a more rigorous investigation that involves collecting images and ideas. There follows an incubation period during which the essence of the solution crystallizes out. They know that, as a team, it is quite redundant to operate in any fashion other than the

democratic one, where each voice has equal weight. It is in this way that they begin to put a structure to the final image. The same method is used with regards to their work on canvas. Throughout this modus operandi that is by no means confined to image production, respect is given to the facts. The clear intention is to 'tell it like it was' by filtering out any emotional bias as far as possible. This is the toughest part because as William explains: “You do the thing badly and you invite the wrath of the viewer. On the other hand, if you do it superlatively well you generally invite his envy. We do our best regardless and have learnt to accept the bad with the good.”

“Our goal was always simple," added Tom’s brother. "The object was to create a wholly authentic document, a human document that would faithfully reflect the history we had lived and experienced as a community. We set out to show rather than interpret, to make a picture book of the Troubles that could be easily read and to that end we used photographic material from the period. We subsequently used old pictorial design techniques. The triangle in fact, which is the very essence of stability, is a favourite motif that is used extensively for this reason. This is the primary motif of the 'Petrol Bomber' and later the Bernadette Devlin portrait. The People’s Gallery was always going to be realized…unless we were shot. But, let us not go there, as they say."

For a people caught up in 1994 in a dangerous and anxiety-ridden environment it became a spiritual imperative for the artists to present something solid, secure, reassuring and permanent. In this way the work would reflect the unbreakable spirit of the people. These considerations are there embedded in the walls and are as transparent to all who would care to look as a fly in amber. That's why the murals of The Bogside Artists are quite unique in Northern Ireland's political iconography. They are works of art as distinct from sectarian manipulation or territorial marking for its own sake. They are poetry and are meant to be poetry. Only from the truthful state of mind can good art be brought forth.

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You can find out more about The Bogside Artists from their website; http://www.bogsideartists.com. There too you will discover that the three artists do walking tours of their murals which have proved immensely popular with those who have gone on them, in many instances proving the highlight of their trip to Ireland.

                                                                                                                                              End

Words- 1,113

About the Author

Trevor Philips is a pseudonym.