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From: Ben Zanoe Category: Art Date: 24 September 2009 Time: 04:19 PM Review: Not certain about comparing Hughie O'Donoghue to Anselm Kiefer even if various attempts to do just that seem to be what several newspaper art columists are clumsily attempting, maybe the golden chromatic scale that runs through this fashion-ignorant Artist's work is sufficient justification for the cursory glance to make a comparison to Kiefers boldly formed testaments but they are generationally distanced and adopt quite different outlooks. Donoghue also compares badly with the limelight seekers of the contemporary niche marketeering artrockers, he follows a rugged plough and lacks the hype to engage in smart arsed newsprint bollocks. The bluntly robust attributes in much of his painting requires genuine visual debriefing on the part of the viewer, there's no Snotart affectations going on here but I can see it's always open season for work in this semi figurative vein. O'Donoghue's work is also subtle, there are layers but they don't always appear to be colours and detail, detail would be too fragile for the urgency of this work, you need to see something less subterranian if you seek concision this is a weighed, sculptural type of painting with the ability to include the viewer in its own mythology. The unfortunate problem is that the Snotart Threadneedle brigade will praise this work to suit their own reactionary agenda without truly knowing what the hell is going on and as for the others clinging to their conceptual statements about Blood, death, money, stardom, A level Art and other associated elements of arrested development, well it's like their farting in in a thunderstorm.