Anthony Collins has been working from his Dublin based studio at La Catedral Studios since 1999.
He received a joint BA honors in Painting and History of Art at the National College of Art and Design in 1992, after first completing a diploma in art at Cyprus College of Art in 1992. He worked as an art dealer in London for a time where he noticed that some visitors to the Gallery had what he described as “ineluctable subjectivness in their attitude towards certain things” I.e certain people were predisposed to reacting in certain ways to certain things. This observation on society began to evolve into an art form for Anthony.
He began to produce work that had an element of what he referred to as “opportunistic”. Anthony began to create interactive events, one of these was called “dinner party” where he set up a table and chairs at an event that was being led at the docklands and invited people to sit down to “dinner”.
“welcome to my dinner party” he said ” but I have no food, you will have to paint your own“. He set out bowls of rich coloured paints and asked people to use the “tools” he presented them with to paint their dinner. He said that some of the marks people made were more symbolic than “crafted” and some paintings were incredibly well executed.
“It started out as a kind of Socratic thing“explains Collins… “Socrates process of finding out people’s ideas on morality was to engage them in conversation. Socrates would not put forth his own thoughts on the subject, rather he would listen to what people had to say and he would question them so as to guide them through their thought process and help them to arrive at an understanding of the subject”…
He began to produce work that had an element of what he referred to as “opportunistic”. Anthony began to create interactive events, one of these was called “dinner party” where he set up a table and chairs at an event that was being led at the docklands and invited people to sit down to “dinner”.
“welcome to my dinner party” he said ” but I have no food, you will have to paint your own“. He set out bowls of rich coloured paints and asked people to use the “tools” he presented them with to paint their dinner. He said that some of the marks people made were more symbolic than “crafted” and some paintings were incredibly well executed.
“It started out as a kind of Socratic thing“explains Collins… “Socrates process of finding out people’s ideas on morality was to engage them in conversation. Socrates would not put forth his own thoughts on the subject, rather he would listen to what people had to say and he would question them so as to guide them through their thought process and help them to arrive at an understanding of the subject”…
Anthony is interested in finding out people’s thoughts and ideas about Art. The conversations that happen through out the event are very important to his work.
http://www.mracollins.com/bio.html
http://www.mracollins.com/bio.html
