A MAJOR international drinks brand commissioned an artist with strong links to Beara to provide it with a special design, when it was commemorating its founder recently.
Conor Harrington, a world-renowned artist with deep connections to Rossmacowen near Castletownbere, was commissioned by iconic brandy company Hennessy to work on the design for the commemorative Founder’s Edition bottle.
Conor was commissioned, alongside street artist Maser, to create the artwork for the label, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the birth of its Irish founder, Richard Hennessy.
‘Hennessy contacted us – separately – about a year-and-a-half ago to do the commemorative bottle,’ explained Conor.
‘They have a history of collaborating with street artists and have worked with creators such as Futura and Faith 47 in the past,’ he said.
Conor and Maser knew each other before the commission and have had a long-standing creative partnership.
‘I went to art college in Limerick for four years and around that time started doing graffiti, which was always done illegally in the middle of night!’ explained Conor.
‘Around that time, I became aware of the graffiti scene up in Dublin and Drogheda, which was a bit more organised, and became involved in that. Drogheda still has a festival called Bridge Jam and I think that is where I first met Maser and first saw his work.’
Their first collaboration was in 2013 in London where the pair painted a gate near Conor’s studio and then again in 2015 when they painted a large wall in Arkansas when Maser was living there.
‘Our styles are so different that when you put them together they really work because its contrasting, but also complimentary,’ said Conor.
The resulting vibrant and colourful artwork combines their distinctive styles in an eye-catching homage to the Hennessy founder.
The fusion of Maser’s bold colours and pattern overlays combine perfectly to complement Conor’s portraiture.
Conor’s colour scheme for the brand was distinctively Irish.
‘I wanted to have an Irish palette for my portrait, so Richard is wearing green. I did a trial painting where he was wearing white, but I didn’t think it was as powerful. So I decided to go with a strong green and put a fading yellowy-gold sunset behind him.’
Conor still maintains a connection to his family’s farm in Rossmacowen in Beara, and has recently planted a native Irish forest there to honour his family’s 400-year history on the land.
‘I thought that planting the forest would be a nice way of bringing the land back to life with nature and to commemorate all those generations of Harringtons who had lived and farmed on the land for all those years,’ he said.
One of Conor’s childhood memories was of a story his father told him of when he himself was a young boy, of climbing up onto one of the cow houses and carving his name into the top of the roof with a stone.
‘That really struck me. I don’t think he realised when he told me that story of the can of worms he was about to open! I have written my own name on walls and places all over the world now,’ he laughed.
On a professional level, Conor has exhibited extensively internationally, including notable shows such as ‘Eat and Delete’ at the Lazarides Gallery in New York in 2014 and ‘Watch Your Palace Fall’ at the Heni/ Pace gallery in London in 2016.
His work can be found in the collections of Anita Zabludowicz, Damien Hirst’s Murderme Collection, as well as in the private collections of notable celebrities like Alicia Keyes and Elton John.
On a personal level, Conor is still very much connected to his West Cork roots and checks on his rewilding forest on a regular basis, along with his young family.
His two young sons love their visits back to West Cork.
‘They are London kids, but when they go to West Cork they just love it and are blown away by the wildness and all the space they have to run around.’
It looks like Conor has ensured yet another generation will maintain strong connections to the Beara farm.
