Terry Haggerty

The inter­play between illu­sion and real­ity has always fas­ci­nated the artist. The old­est exam­ples of trompe-l’oeils, images involv­ing a skilled use of per­spec­tive to cre­ate the illu­sion that the objects are three-dimensional, have been found in Pom­peii. The min­i­mal­ist paint­ings by the native British artist Terry Hag­gerty are excep­tion­ally con­tem­po­rary even though their cen­tral theme is about play­ing with illu­sion. Fine lines either solid­ify or move away from one another on can­vas or on walls; they taper towards the edges and hence give the impres­sion of depth and cor­po­re­al­ity. The sig­na­ture of the artist; brush strokes; and all ges­tural spon­tane­ity have dis­ap­peared from these images. Other signs of author­ship, such as a mono­gram, are also miss­ing. Noth­ing but pure paint­ing can be seen. The paint­ing by the artist who can be seen stand­ing in the land­scape with easel and palette or is exter­nal­is­ing his inner­most self has been detached from that of a ratio­nally– act­ing min­i­mal­ist sub­or­di­nat­ing tech­ni­cal approach to artis­tic strat­egy. Per­fect and cool, almost as if machine– made, the evenly toned struc­tures seem to rein­ter­pret the vocab­u­lary of Min­i­mal Art. The sub­tle and only ini­tially monochrome-appearing spec­trum of colours cho­sen by Hag­gerty ranges from deep black to bright yel­low; and from lush orange to metal­lic shades such as sil­ver. In some works, the hues change so min­i­mally that only your sub­con­scious per­ceives a slight variation.