This week's Book on One on RTÉ Radio 1 is Negative Space, a memoir by one of Ireland's leading art writers and critics, Cristín Leach - listen above.
It weaves words and art with the unravelling of self that comes when a marriage breaks down.
Leach's fluency in visual art and knowledge and empathy with the lives of artists brings her solace, perspective and wisdom throughout her book.
The words she includes in Negative Space by artist Louise Bourgeois, for example, perfectly echo the urgent, elemental act Leach performed in writing this book: 'You can stand anything if you write it down. You must do it to get hold of yourself. When space is limited, or when you have to stay with a child, you always have recourse to writing, All you need is pen and paper.'
Among the many subjects in the excerpts the author reads on Book on One are her consideration of her identity as a writer, and the panic that hit her when her marriage began to fall apart. Leach recalls how her artist mother taught her to draw when she was a young child by looking at negative space, the inside of the handle of a cup, for instance. She also recounts how tinnitus began for her as a dull, muffling sound, like a warning she didn't yet understand, and describes a portrait her mother made of her in childhood and the impact on her of the work of artists William McKeon and Gerda Fromel.
Across the excerpts she references a number of Irish and International artists including Amy Walsh, Dorothy Cross, Anthony Haughey Brancusi and Nan Goldin. She also writes about the importance of friends, and of healing.
About Negative Space, Leach says,' Since it was published in 2022, I have had incredible responses from readers. To some, it is a book about art; to others it's a book about writing, a book about anxiety, motherhood, marital separation, friendship, self, home. To me, it is a book about all of these things. It was always written to be read aloud. I'm so glad to share these extracts with listeners to Book on One."
Listen to more from Negative Space via Book On One here.
Negative Space is published by Irish Academic Press - find out more here.
