Rigby Graham's IRISH VOYAGE
A Malachite Production for Goldmark Gallery
Film Trailer from the Goldmark Gallery website
Travelling across Ireland with Rigby Graham was a revelation. There is hardly a corner of this fascinating country that he cannot illuminate with his experience and vision. The man has been working in Ireland for more than thirty years and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of its past, its people, its pain and its passions.
The film is a kind of 'retrospective road movie' visiting many of the artist's old haunts and creating dynamic new work along the way. Graham has a dry sense of humour and enlivens the film with his own cryptic commentaries written daily on postcarfds home.
It was a challenging film to make, not least for Graham who, in his seventieth year, had to undergo a journey as demanding in its way as those of his forebear Ulysses. Enduring rough roads and stormy seas, it culminated in a spectacular climb amidst the puffins to an ancient monastery perched on a rocky island sanctuary set deep in the Atlantic: a pilgrimage that inspired profound reflections on his life and work.
Charles Mapleston