Sinéad O’Connor is a genius, an icon and a powerful performer.
From the first moment I saw her perform on TV I was enthralled and my admiration for her work remains undimmed to this day.
A troubled soul with a voice that would melt granite and cause it to weep, has enthralled us for three decades now with her outstanding talent and mesmerising vocals. I have been blessed to work with Sinéad many times, on many interesting projects.
Faith and Courage
My own favourite work to emerge from this process has to be my covers for her wonderful album ‘Faith and Courage’.
This album was a beauty from start to finish and to have my work grace its cover was an honour indeed. It sounds a little sycophantic but I genuinely love and still love, listening to the voice and music of this, a young, Irishwoman and stellar performer.
The very first time we actually met was in the old POD nightclub in the late 90s when I was introduced to Sinéad by a mutual friend, Íse, another female vocalist and performer who I also photographed and drew around that time.
By then Sinéad had collaborated with Prince on that amazing No 1 hit worldwide, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, so I was a little star-struck myself despite working and hanging out with everyone from my late friend Philip Lynott to the great Rory Gallagher but still, this was Sinéad O’Connor, one of the most beautiful women on the planet and a world star.
She quickly cut through the ice and told me quietly that when she was going through a rough time in her childhood she had my poster of the goddess Palu on her bedroom wall and used that as inspiration to ‘stay strong’ throughout a difficult period.
I was quite moved and proud too that a work of mine could inspire such an amazing woman.
From that moment she could do no wrong and it’s the same for me today. None of us are perfect but genius and artistry deserve respect beyond the norm.
Not one artist I know goes through life unscathed, we give so much of ourselves to create beauty and in the process, we lose something of ourselves to that very act of creation.
Not everyone survives either, but back to ‘Faith and Courage’.
My initial sketches were voluminous until finally, I hit on an image I felt did justice to my subject and to the music.
I decided at an early stage to execute the work in pastel and chalk as I had already used this technique in a triple portrait of my best friend and muse Audrey Nugent and loved the beautiful effects that result from the delicacy of pastel drawing and simple techniques such as softening with finger work and hazing with sable brushes.
As far as Sinéad was concerned I had a free hand to work as I wished and she liked this idea as soon as she saw it.
The title was originally ‘Pleading the Blood of Jesus’.
I had intended, as I note below the cover drawing, that the image should be ‘All blues and purples’. In the end those colours did not work for me and I simply changed to warm tones. I did not have to ask anyone as Sinéad gave me a free hand -you don’t get that kind of artistic freedom very often.
Under this is my pen and ink drawing of her key features that were visible to me as I added layer upon layer of pastel.
The drawing I did had a number of key elements, the first and most obvious was a sketch of the artist herself with head bowed. One of the very first things I noticed about Sinéad was her beautiful long, natural eyelashes. Of course, she always had a beautiful face and it was known worldwide at the time so I could get away with a bowed head instead of the usual full face portrait.
After my first roughs were approved by Sinéad and the record company I went ahead with a finished pastel painting. It took me two false starts before I produced an image I was happy with and once it was done I added a touch of religious iconography.
Since we were both brought up in the Catholic faith we were familiar with religious imagery and I remembered an illustration in my own mass missal of the divine revelation coming to the saints in the form of ‘tongues of fire’.
Of course, I added them in immediately to signify divine inspiration as I had no doubt this singer-songwriter was in her own way, divinely inspired.
The pastel drawing progresses and the colour, cool and pale at first, took on a life of its own and ended up much warmer and richer -as you can see from this series of images.
The back cover
The back cover was different and deliberately so: I wanted to produce a definitive portrait of this beautiful woman and as I had never photographed her myself at that point (I did quite a few photo shoots with Sinéad after this) I had to rely on references from the internet but none had exactly what I wanted so I simply went for my own take on her face and added again, not by design but by instinct, a yellowish aura to give an extra dimension to the image.
The back cover as it progressed from a slightly ‘alien’ looking image to the more subtle final version.
The final pastel for the album back cover plus a detail of the artwork
The end result, I think, I hope, does Sinéad justice.
-Jim FitzPatrick. 2019
NOTE:
SHUDUDA DAVITT (aka Sinéad O’Connor ) is her choice of name and now the correct name for this amazing woman.
As all my work was with her when she was named Sinéad I refer to her by her previous name only so as not to confuse anyone reading this account of my work with her.