Galway Advertiser 1991/1991_06_13/GA_13061991_E1_022.pdf 

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MANUS WALSH-FROM THE BURREN TO VALPARAISO
"Steps and Stones", a new exhibition by artist Manus Walsh, will be opened tomor row night at The Kenny Gallery by Dr. Patrick Wallace, Director of the National Museum. Manus and his wife Claire and their family have lived in the attractive and bustling village of Ballyvaughan for more than fifteen years now and the stony landscape of the Burren has provided the inspiration for much of Manus's work.
But this exhibition differs from the many others he's had in that it combines his abiding love of the Burren with a recently acquired fascination with the Chilean capital of Valparaiso. Manus Walsh was born in Stillorgan and one of the early influences on him was his grandfather, the well-known writer Maurice Walsh. Manus remembers him as a lovely man he used to visit every Sunday. He encouraged young Manus's in terest in art and music. His early training was in the art of stained glass as an apprentice in The Abbey Studios. Manus acknowledges a considerable artistic debt to the ar tist George Campbell. "He came into the studios to do some stained glass windows and he didn't have a clue. So George Walsh - no relation - and I helped him out and he was very appreciative". Campbell discovered Manus was interested in flamenco music and Spain, although he'd never been there. "George started me off thinking about painting as a career and the next thing I knew I was off to join he and his wife Madge, who spent every winter there, in Spain for two months". That was in 1966 and, using Campbell's home as a base, he travelled all over, sketching and stockpiling ideas and images for use in projected paintings. When Manus came back to Ireland he had his first exhibition in Dublin, many of the pain tings inspired by the Malaga region he had come to know. While he continued to work in stained glass - commissions for churches and a few bars, he also now decided to take up painting full-time. Manus first came down to the West in 1970 that same year he married his wife, Claire - and had a studio at the top of Dun Guaire Castle in Kinvara during the summer. "It was a tourist thing. I demonstrated my work -1 was doing enameling now - and also sold my paintings". He and Claire stayed out in Flaggy Shore, at New Quay, and he fell in love with the Burren. While in Dun Guaire he met County Development officials and gradually the idea of setting up a workshop in the area took hold. In 1975 he sold his house in Dublin and set up both house and shop in Ballyvaughan. While Manus painted and worked in his craft workshop, Claire, at a time when there was little happening in Ballyvaughan bravely opened a restaurant that's since become very popular.

"George Campbell started me off thinking about painting as a career'
churned up earth, because the saltpetre was found very near the surface. It was dug out by hand and the workers were, of course, terribly exploited and the "chit" system operated. There were shops con nected with the factories and when the workers were paid they bought what they needed there, so in effect they were simply giving their wages back to the company again. Now all you have is this almost unbroken silence. It's uncanny.

Manus loves the Burren and describes it as "a place of secret corners". He's walked every inch of it by now, sketch-pad under his arm, camera around his neck. "You can still find places where you have the feeling no one's ever been there before. Could you tell me a little about this exhibi tion, Manus? The two features of this new exhibition are the Burren and Valparaiso in Chile. I went to Chile for the first time last March and stayed three weeks with German friends who got jobs and moved out there. The "Steps" part of the exhibition refers to the city of Valparaiso itself, which is laid out in a series of "steps" or tiers of buildings, rising up from the old Port. They say there are forty-two hills in Valparaiso.

"It was just amazing to see the enormous crowds streaming down the hills to the centre of the city"
I'm hoping to arrange an exhibition that I'd bring to Chile - I've had an invitation from the GoetheSchiller Institute who'll put it on - will be centred around this derelict mining site. "Steps and Stones" - what's the link between the Burren and Valparaiso? The link is the idea of "steps". You're walking up "steps" in the Burren all the time, and it's the same in the Chilean city. What you don't have in the Burren, though, is something you see all over in Valparaiso - lifts that carry people up and down the hills! One very interesting experience I had while I was in Chile last March was watching the birth of the new democracy under the elected president Patricio Aylwyn. It was just amazing to see the enormous crowds streaming down the hills to the centre of the city.

"The Burren is a place of secret corners"
The paintings that have resulted are almost abstract, like the Burren itself which is quite dif ficult to capture in a realistic way. The paintings of Valparaiso try to focus not so much on actual "places" as on this amazing perspective of the multi-layered city. Did you visit any other parts of Chile? Yes, another place I visited, which is also represented by one painting, is the Aticama Desert in the North of Chile. Much of it is extremely bar ren, but then you come across these wonderful spots of green - oases, really - where you find lit tle settlements. But the most unusual place is the now empty town associated with the old saltpetre mines. From about the middle of the 19th to the early decades of the 20th century, a big industry grew up in this part of the Aticama desert based on supplying the armies of Europe with gunpowder. All the old fac tories are still there but now they've been declared national monuments. The site is quite spectacular and and also very bizarre. You have all these derelict buildings sitting there, surrounded by

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Manus Walsh has, like many of those living in the Burren, very strong feelings about the propos ed development of an interpretive centre at Mullagmore. While he believes the Burren must be made available to visitors, the key question is how this is done. "It's such a fragile, beautiful landscape. It could so easily be destroyed unless care is taken to ensure it's presented properly"As an artist who has made his home in this weird ly beautiful place, Manus's chief hope is that this "place of secret corners" remains available for future generations.

"STEPS OF VALPARAISO'