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Vince Wall

Immature Fluke

The Courthouse Gallery and Studios, Ennistymon, Co. Clare Feb. 9th - 11th 2007

The latest work to emerge from the Ground Up programme of art in rural contexts is Immature Fluke, a graphic novel and temporary public art event by Vince Wall.

Focusing on the town of Ennistymon, Wall employs forms and techniques from popular and youth culture; comic culture, printed T-shirts, 3-D graphics, badges and posters. The graphic novel which is the centre of this work, tells the story of a sadistic headmaster while he pursues a local boy who is dossing from school; reminiscent of darker, cult comics this story features strange, menacing characters such as the headmaster and others encountered on a Dante-esque journey through the town. Landmarks from Ennistymon feature throughout the imagery and each character is portrayed by a local person.They have however undergone a dramatic transformation.

Artist Statement

Immature Fluke is a temporary public art event. The premier of this commissioned work took place in the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon, Co. Clare from 9th - 11th of February 2007. An exciting advertising campaign and local media representation resulted in almost 1,000 people attending an art event that reminiscent of a carnival house of horrors.

The event is based on my graphic novel, also titled Immature Fluke. It is set in Ennistymon and features many of its landmarks, while also featuring local people as actors playing the parts of the fictional characters. It tells the story of a sadistic school headmaster and his pursuit of a truant schoolboy and was illustrated and printed to resemble a student’s essay copybook.

The interior of the gallery was transformed into a classroom scene from the comic. A combination of printed images and garments, dramatic lighting, props, sound and projection were used to create an otherworldly environment in which the visitor could read the story and see it brought to life all around them. The aim was to immerse the visitor in the story so that on leaving they might have the same feeling of detachment from reality as one would have on leaving a cinema after having been absorbed in a movie.

When I got involved in Ground Up the emphasis was on making artwork that can convey ideas to the community. For me, being from Ennistymon and growing up there, my first impulse was to attempt to engage with the young people of North Clare and make work that is specifically about being young and being from that area. The idea of making comics occurred to me as a means of doing that. Comics can deal with any subject matter using real or imagined people and places. I wanted to address the situation that I found myself in growing up here, when everything that influenced me came from far away - films, comics and music etc. There was very little in the local area that would have stopped me in my tracks and inspired me. I know that if I had seen something like Immature Fluke I would certainly have taken notice and I hoped that I could provide that for someone else. I consciously aimed the comic and event at local teenagers by using very exciting, iconic advertising images which became very collectable in the form of badges, posters, postcards and dramatic banners which decorated the exterior of the venue.

At 32 pages long, Immature Fluke is certainly my most ambitious comic to date. My previous ones had been growing more surreal and were beginning to deal with darker subject matters but remained quite short and so the plots would remain fairly simple. I was keen to attempt something longer in which I could explore a more complex story.

My earlier shorter comics had been inexpensive to produce in the form of leaflets, fliers, and t-shirts, and could be easily distributed directly into people’s hands. However Immature Fluke is a far greater undertaking and a much more substantial publication. I couldn’t financially justify giving away comics to everyone so I developed the event to act as a vehicle to bring the comic to the public and create a space where people could come to read while surrounded by sounds and imagery that enhance the experience.

It was an interesting experiment. People were coming in, off the streets of Ennistymon, to experience a surreal mirror image of their town and then step back outside to go about their day. It is a blatant example of a 360 degree process where artists can be influenced by their neighbours, make something that is inspired by them, but not necessarily in an obvious way, and present it to their neighbours.

Comics were a huge influence on me during my childhood and early teens. When I was about thirteen I really wanted to become a comic book artist. I remember beginning secondary school and a teacher asking everybody in the class what they wanted to do for a living, I said that I wanted to be a comic book artist. His reaction was totally blank, in the words of Bill Hicks “He looked at me like a dog that had just been shown a card trick”. The emphasis in secondary school was on memorising data. There was very little in the way of creative subjects and I forgot about making comics for a long time. I can count on one hand the things we studied that actually made any impact on me. King Lear and Wuthering Heights spring to mind.

Lots of people can identify with that situation and the story of Immature Fluke was probably spawned from it but, in true comic book style, the characters are exaggerated to become either very good or evil, and the headmaster character becomes like an anti-Christ. The story clashes values of contemporary Ireland with those of the past and pays homage to the tradition of local superstitions and ghost stories which are still passed on today.