Artists David Godbold and Finola Jones have achieved the near- impossible: they have converted an affordable old factory into a living and working space - and garage. Gemma Tipton looks on in envy.
Interiors magazines never tire of telling you that your home reflects your personality. For many of us it also reflects what is fashionable, available and affordable. The husband-and-wife artists David Godbold and Finola Jones managed to stay truer to the ideal when they looked for a place in Dublin.
Wanting a workspace that would double as somewhere to live, they were on the hunt for an industrial premises to convert. What they found was a dilapidated barn near the Liffey that had once been a sausage factory. Perhaps it takes a particularly inspired eye to see beyond the grisly residue of sausage making: when Jones and Godbold first saw the space it was like an episode of The X-Files. Insulated to stay cool, it was freezing inside, with a blood drain in the centre of what is now the living room. The insulation now works the other way, keeping in the heat from two stoves. Memories of meat processing are limited to the large hooks hanging from the studio ceiling.
Felim Dunne, one of the architects behind U2's plans for a twisting Docklands tower, helped them transform the factory into a living and working environment with a flavour of New York, a city where both artists have spent time.
Short of money but long on ideas, Jones and Godbold bartered to get some of the work done, which means some of those who helped out now possess some wonderful works of art. They also built a lot themselves. So in wondering how much the space reflects the personality of this couple, the answer is simple. The house does not merely reflect Godbold and Jones as artists: it is part of their work.
Having such a large home gives them the luxury of enough space to collect art. Jones's Crazy On The Outside, a playful pink elephant, watches pieces by Siobhán Hapaska, Raymond Pettibon, The Royal Art Lodge and, of course, Godbold.
He and Jones are acquisitive by nature, a trait reflected both in their home's array of intriguing objects and in their art. Godbold's current work involves rescuing the detritus of life - the used envelopes, screwed-up shopping lists and discarded sheets of paper - and using them as backgrounds for his drawings. He takes the drawings from art history, with a preponderance from religious works, and overlays them with extracts from texts that he uses to layer meaning on meaning, idea on idea.
Godbold's jettisoned pages reflect aspects of the cities where he found them: the ephemera of New York, the dirt of Rome and, amusingly, the homework of Dublin (what Godbold seems to find most in his home city). A notice of a site visit to the Casino dell'Aurora Pallavicini, a 17th-century Roman palace, is covered with a drawing of a group in ecstasy at the foot of the Cross. Beneath are the words: "I hope you don't believe in ART too much . . . (it is bad for your health & obscures our view of other possibilities)."
Sometimes the associations are more uneasy. One handwritten blue sheet begins: "Today, 5th of October 2002, I received Jesus into my life. I have asked forgiveness for my sins." Who wrote the words, and why? Why discard them? Godbold aims not to provide the answers but just to make you think. Here he has overlaid the page with a pastoral drawing of a castle on a hill. Typed text reads: "sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids!"
The religious motif continues in the house. The entrance hall is full of holy statues and religious kitsch against dark-blue walls. Godbold quotes the philosopher Max Milner to explain their fascination: "You don't need to believe in religion to believe in the power of its sentiment." Beyond the hallway the living area is more elegant and modernist, although a classic Eileen Gray table and leather sofas are disrupted somewhat by the "integral garage": you can drive right in.
Getting the working space ready came first for the couple, although Godbold notes that now he has room to make huge pieces his work has got smaller. The same is true for Jones. After the size and sheer fun of Crazy On The Outside she has moved into film and video work. Artificially Reconstructed Habitats, a 23-channel video installation she has made about animals trapped in zoos and people whose prisons are of their own volition, will be at Temple Bar Gallery in April.
With work due to be shown at art fairs in Basle, Madrid, New York and London, Godbold has also been shortlisted as the UK's next official elections artist. You wonder if Tony Blair knows what he could be getting into.
Once It Was A Lie, Now It's The Truth . . . by David Godbold is at the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, until February 12th