“It’s such an Irish story, for better or worse, to have to leave to make your name,” reflects artist Conor Harrington on the journey he has taken. He is considering this in the context of a new collaboration with fellow artist Maser in honour of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Richard Hennessy, the man behind the eponymous brand. And while his fellow Corkonian emigrated to the Cognac region in France, creating the globally revered Hennessy, Harrington made the move to London, settling there 20 years ago.
Collaborating with him on this project to create the artwork accompanying a new Founder’s Editions bottle is Maser, a fellow globetrotter, initially like Harrington, working through the prism of street art. “I knew these collaborations were a rite of passage within our subculture. Some of the biggest names over the years have been invited to work with the brand. My first thought was that I love Conor’s work, and we’d collaborated before, so there was a synergy there. Then I thought, since he has never done commercial work before, this is going nowhere.” Fortunately it did.
“When I read this brief, it was very much aligned with what I do and made sense from a creative point of view,” says Harrington, over Zoom from his Brick Lane studio in London. “I was on holidays in La Rochelle around ‘97 when my dad took us to Cognac. He was really passionate about Irish history, so he was going on and on about how this guy comes from Cork and went on to create the biggest cognac brand in the world.”
Meanwhile, it was partly a shared love of hip-hop which also brought the two artists into each other’s orbit for the first time, when they were both part of the formative Irish street art scene in the late 1990s. Harrington recollects a piece by Maser at the Bridge Jam in Drogheda, “a figurative piece of a face painted in blue tones” which they link back to The Roots album Things Fall Apart. “It’s cool you saw that,” enthuses Maser. Indeed, hip hop royalty, Nas is one of the previous creators of a limited edition bottle.
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Meanwhile Maser remembers witnessing Harrington’s burgeoning success overseas and decided to reach out to him for some advice. “I messaged him and asked, ‘Can I pick your brain?’ I was totally vulnerable and transparent. He gave me the answer before I even went over to see him.”
Eagerly making arrangements to meet, Maser, arriving at 2pm had to wait until Harrington finished his self-imposed working day, to meet for an evening pint. “That was a clear indicator there—no matter what, he didn’t break his routine, he was focused on his practice. The dude is so disciplined.”
The pairs’ journey with Hennessy saw them making a trip to Cognac together which became integral to understanding the Hennessy world and its machinations. “Travelling over there, looking at the landscape, the past, the present - that was the whole framework for the narrative,” says Maser. “It was rich in context and inspiration. You’d think Hennessy would be this big massive machine but it all starts with…” as seamless as their work, Harrington jumps in, “…a master blender and the tasting committee. The room is the size of a living room, really small with a table in the middle. On the shelves they have these tiny little samples of eau de vie which is like cognac before it becomes cognac. Twice a day they sit there tasting with the master blender making the final call. It felt so bespoke for such a huge brand. It’s not a million miles from what we do, sitting in our studios - instead of tastebuds we are using our eyes and trying to make the right decisions as well.”
And so they set to work on their vibrant fusion with Maser heading over to Harrington’s studio every few weeks. “I would turn up for a weekend, paint for two days and shoot off. As Conor uses oil it takes longer to dry. The process was quite draughtsman-like, with a degree of push and pull, adding to it to make sense.”
One of the trickier things to negotiate turned out to be the packaging. “That was a learning curve for me,” says Harrington, “as it was something I wouldn’t have considered. I work on really large canvases whereas with a bottle and packaging, it’s much smaller and when you stick it on a shelf it has to stand out. There was a lot of simplifying and distilling to make something complicated in the studio work on a smaller scale.”
“We chose a canvas with four sections,” says Maser. “You dress around the front and have to think about label info. It still needs to be visually strong, not competing but complementing. We had the final artwork ready last September before the addition of textures and layers to bring it into the luxury space. Then we painted it as a full composition.”
After its official launch this month, the original artwork will hold pride of place upon the walls of Killavullen, the Co Cork home of Richard Hennessy, which is something Harrington is particularly proud of.
“To be personal about it, my dad died during lockdown. He was very proud of everything I’ve done but didn’t understand the art world. I use historical dressing more as a Trojan horse to discuss other ideas while my dad had a very linear sense of history. I did one painting where they were wearing 18th-century costumes but there was a UN flag. I know the UN didn’t exist then and my dad would have called me up on it. However, I know he would have been absolutely buzzing to know I am working with Hennessy and proud of what we’ve achieved.”
The Hennessy Founder’s Edition bottle is now available across grocery, independent wine shops & wholesale customers. Recommended selling price at €41
