Blog - Cora Murphy Irish Landscape Artist

BlogIrishArtist2019-12-19T10:12:10+00:00

coramurphyart

Contemporary Landscape Painter
New Collections of Oil Paintings and Limited Edition Prints released directly to my mailing list.
Cork, Ireland

I can not wait to see, feel and be in the sea! Aft

I can not wait to see, feel and be in the sea! After family, the sea is the absence I am feeling most in this time of Covid. The Sea literally fills up my senses - the sight, sound, smell, salty taste and heart-halting, startling splash of it feel like a vital life force that I can plug right in to.

I have had a few revelatory- or what a great friend terms ‘coming to Jesus’ - moments by the side of (or in) the sea.
I’ll share some here in coming days in a short series that might as well be titled ‘How I became a Landscape Painter’. ‘At Inchydoney’ above was painted following my first trip to the wonderful West Cork island as a VERY shaky novice driver. I had just moved to Cork following 15 years of city life overseas and was clueless about driving, navigation and life in Ireland. I had no sense of direction but my inner compass, like the tide brought me home to the sea.
I remember very clearly walking the beach with an inner knowing I was in the right place and time and having a wonderful new sense of feeling ‘at home’ at home.
My art making prior to returning to Ireland had been conceptual - chairs bound up in masking tape anyone?! And while painting was a key part of my practice, with some hindsight and a lot more experience, I can read much of that early work as sharing a central theme of ‘Longing’. There was a seismic shift in those white sands at Inchydoney that day in 2008 when I fell forward’s into Belonging.
Shortly afterwards ‘At Inchydoney’ spilled out onto the page. My first intuitive, responsive landscape. It was a celebration of the sea - and in truth a celebration of me. I didn’t know what I’d do or how I’d do it but I knew I could go forwards from here.
In many ways I feel I made a home for myself literally in the landscape. As a constant tap root of inspiration it harnessed, or maybe tethered me, and gave me a genre I feel comfortable but not hemmed in by, there’s nutrients and much nurture for growth as a continuum.
The sea is so central to my work - it has underpinned my work and given me buoyancy in my life. 💚 🌊 Oh I cant wait to see the Sea More Sea Sceals tomorrow. ‘At Inchydoney’ is available as a M, L or XL Print.

20% OFF ALL Limited Edition Prints and Paintings u

20% OFF ALL Limited Edition Prints and Paintings until Monday! Click on link on image. Shipping 🌍 worldwide!
Send 💚Home.
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20% OFF ALL Paintings & Prints for a very Limited

20% OFF ALL Paintings & Prints for a very Limited time. Worldwide Shipping.
See link in bio or visit: www.coramurphy.com .

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Send ❤️HOME! Art Card Gift Boxes from €15. O

Send ❤️HOME! Art Card Gift Boxes from €15. Old fashioned correspondence means so much now. Let your loved ones know you’re thinking of them, or have a box delivered to them so they can spread the love. Or #designhack a little #selflove and frame them 😉 Eitherway spread the love like it’s a virus 💚 Or a cure 💚.
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#sendlovehome #artcards #irishart #home #love #covidcorrespondence #covidcure #letterwriting #ireland

I’m sharing #WorkinProgress as I’m making lar

I’m sharing #WorkinProgress as I’m making large paintings over on my stories these days. Tune in most afternoons at 4ish for a little talk through what I’ve been up to that day. It’s a bit like watching paint dry. I’m also going Live on Sunday’s at Noon (not a bit like Mass!!) - to chat through studio / artist life and to answer any questions you may have. Feel free to DM questions in advance. Sending love to you all in isolation 💎💚🤗🌊. @coramurphyart .
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#studiolife #artistsatwork #thispaintinglife #irishartists #contemporaryirishartists #contemporarylandscapepainting #paintings #seascapes #inthestudiowith #adifferentkindofblue #coramurphyart

‘It was a mysterious day on Fire Island’ certa

‘It was a mysterious day on Fire Island’ certainly had a mysterious origin. It was painted while I was on a Painting Fellowship at @ballinglen_arts_foundation in County Mayo. During that time I was doing a lot of walking on Lacken Strand - a gorgeous expansive white beach which is incredibly under populated. It reminded me of Fire Island, a teeny island off Long Island where I had worked during Summers when I first left Ireland. While in Mayo I started to think about doing a residency on Fire Island, it was a formative time in my life and I hadn’t visited in many years. Deciding it was possibly best to focus on the residency in hand, I resolved to think about the Fire Island work at another time.
Approx 1 min later, I randomly picked a novel off the shelf in the cottage where I was staying. It was titled ‘Land of Dreams’ - and the VERY first line said “It was a mysterious day on Fire Island” - I couldn’t believe it! Attention pricked, I read on to discover the book was about an Irish painter, Ellie, living and working on Fire Island. It is a work of fiction, but I felt sure it was guiding me back to Fire Island. I look forward to returning in better times. Even curiouser, when I contacted @katekerriganauthor the author to alert her to the strange coincidence, she wrote back immediately telling me she was in fact living 10km from where I was! #MADTED
There have been so many ‘coincidences’ or good guiding forces in my painting journey to date, I believe now, as then that if you spend your time doing things that make you happy, or that give you energy - having the feeling you are headed in the right direction, you will be guided. It is not always easy to know what your thing is - but if you follow your curiosity I know for sure you will get there. “It was a mysterious day on Fire Island’ is now living in London but it is available as a Limited Edition Print in M, L & XL sizes. See www.coramurphy.com for details. #Irishart #irishartists #home #fireisland #guided #dowhatyoulove #home #oil painting #artforinteriors #interiorart #largepaintings #oilpaintings @coramurphyart

Make someone’s day by letting them know you’re

Make someone’s day by letting them know you’re thinking of them.
An Post are providing a FREE collection AND postal service from Elderly and vulnerable peoples doors! No stamps required!
Art Card Gift Boxes are only €20.
There’s 10 Cards per box.
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‘The Sean Nós & The Sea’ oil on canvas. This

‘The Sean Nós & The Sea’ oil on canvas. This was the title painting from my most recent painting collection. I think that screech of yellow was a sign of things to come as my new paintings have all the bright colours. Looking forward to sharing them in stories soon.
Available as a Limited Edition Print in M, L & XL sizes.

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I can’t wait to see, feel, smell and be in the S

I can’t wait to see, feel, smell and be in the Sea again. ‘The Swell’ from my ‘Mayo Lakes’ Collection reminds me how much I miss wide open water! Living in Cork, I’m fortunate to be close to the Sea and yet it’s a world away for now.

I can’t wait to see the Sea and for the Sea to see me! I might possibly have taken it for granted.

Mary Oliver said it best when she declared ‘My work is loving the world… which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished’. See you soon Mr Sea! 🌊 💙 🙏 ‘The Swell’ is from my Mayo Lakes series and is available as a Limited Edition Print in M, L & XL sizes.

#irishart #home #thesea #seascapes #oilpaintings #contemporarypainting #irishartists #abstract #interiors #largepaintings #abstractpaintings #artoninsta #inchydoney #love #thesea #coisfharraige #abstractlandscape #artforinteriors

Today I’m feeling the need to be surrounded by,

Today I’m feeling the need to be surrounded by, encapsulated in and full of love and yet fear is so easily triggered and close to the surface.
I woke up thinking of this painting. Love like a Landslide - is, I think, proportionate to my needs and those of the worlds, our planet and maybe yours today. I suspect we need to think about love in a new, BIGGER, more imaginative and all encompassing way - a transformative way - like a new currency. A wealth that you only need to practice to become better at and super ‘rich’ - soon to be fluent, full of love.
This will require change - that will be overwhelming - and vulnerability. I’m good with that. If I have a superpower it is vulnerability - not having a notion what I’m doing but showing up and going forwards anyway. Living in a fearful way is not an alternative I can contemplate.
From my ‘Storm after the Calm’ collection, ‘Love like a landslide’ is, in its essence, an ode to love, life and the landscape and how holding on and letting go - or vice versa - in trust and in love - has sustained me when I’ve got a bit lost.
I feel so lucky to get to work in, and be inspired by the landscape. It is the place I’ve made my home. Some days it’s like starting again, I see a view and am ‘floored’ by it, as if for the first time. I think love and life are like that too – magic and utterly remarkable if we take time to really look at or think about it. Today, in spite of default ruminations and rumbling impulses, I’m choosing love over fear 💚 And I’m sending the love to you all 💚 #onwards #chooselove #thereisenough
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‘The Dardanelles’ oil on canvas, 120cm x 100cm

‘The Dardanelles’ oil on canvas, 120cm x 100cm. From the archive. This is from my Mayo Lakes Collection and was one my first larger paintings made in Mayo on the shore of Lough Mask. My family have fished the May Fly on the lake over 50 years..
After getting drenched not catching fish, the tradition is to break for lunch (tae and ham sandwiches) on The Dardanelles, a small outcrop of islands in the middle of the lake. Fishermen assemble to tell each other lies ace forecast further rain. Despite the lack of a lavatory and the very inclement conditions, I love it! There is a short of ‘communion’ to these islands where I feel completely ‘at one’ with nature and my ol Pop..
Now available as a Limited Edition Print in M, L & XL sizes.
#Ireland #gonefishin #castingoff #tightlines #maigheo #irishart #artfromireland #contemporarylandscapepaintings #largeart #home #interiors #mayoart

And there’s MORE! 10 prizes in total now!! Pleas

FYI www.coramurphy.com still VERY much open for bu

FYI www.coramurphy.com still VERY much open for business. Sign up to my mailing list for 10% OFF EVERYTHING on site.
‘They say that here the veil is thin’ original oil on canvas, 40cm x 40cm ready to hang 💚 .
As usual Art Cards, Limited Edition Prints, Gift Vouchers are all available for sale on site. Thanks so much for your support 💚.
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€10 Raffle still going strong!!! ☝️One of TE

€10 Raffle still going strong!!! ☝️One of TEN Prizes up for grabs in my raffle in aid of my Nursing Neighbours at The Mercy Hospital in Cork city. Please see link in my Bio for your chance to win🤞 💚🙏.
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Win this Original Oil Painting for €10! RRP €6

**GIVEAWAY** 3 X Art Card Gift Boxes. 10 Cards & E

**GIVEAWAY** 3 X Art Card Gift Boxes. 10 Cards & Envelopes in each box. Send love to your friends or frame them!!.
To win:
1) Follow @coramurphyart .
2) Tag 2 x friends
3) Share in stories for a bonus entry.
#monday #giveaway #sendlove #irishart #coramurphyart

‘All at Sea’ - in these new, strange days I’

‘All at Sea’ - in these new, strange days I’m harking back to the feeling of this painting - made during a time of change and in response to days spent in solitude on the shoreline. Documenting the sea in layers felt like a meditation – a sort of roadmap in to serenity.

This past week has been discombobulating to say the least. I found myself vacillating every other day between feeling buoyed by the sheer grace of human kindness to feeling my work thus far has been utterly pointless and thinking ‘what’s the point, who needs painting now?’ Staying out of my studio for a few days helped me answer my own question - I need painting now, more than ever 🙏.. Back painting in the studio today helped me find my sea-legs.
Allowing ourselves to ‘be’ all at sea is for me, invigorating, life enhancing and often life-affirming. Whatever you are feeling during these strange days, go lightly - I wish you wellness, love, peace of mind, rest and the resilience to hold on and let go. We are in it together and although it’s unfamiliar I believe we are moving forwards 💚.
Thank you for being here and your support - it means so much 🙏.
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#onwards #forwardsisadirection #whyipaint #irishart #inittogether #allatsea #home #ireland

💚St. Patrick’s Wend Sale💚15% OFF ALL Limit

💚St. Patrick’s Wend Sale💚15% OFF ALL Limited Edition Prints ALL Weekend. ‘Casting Off, Onwards’ now available in Medium, Large & XL sizes. Worldwide Shipping. 26 Prints to choose from 🌊 ❤️.
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10% OFF EVERYTHING when you Sign Up to my Mailing

10% OFF EVERYTHING when you Sign Up to my Mailing List in thanks for your support and interest🙏 By way of introduction - I’m Cora and I’m a contemporary landscape painter based in Cork city(see first comment re images on this post)🙏. It wasn’t always this way! I came to painting relatively late - only beginning when I was 30! Previously I had a successful marketing and communications consultancy in London. I loved it but suspected I was missing something. I took a year out to live in NZ and write a book - that was a disaster ie. the book 🤦‍♀️ but i did stumble upon painting and freedom and both have guided me well❤️ There’s a great expression - leap and the net will appear - it’s true! In 2008 I moved back to Ireland to paint full time- I was clueless about art and everything having been away for 15 years. I was fortunate to find residencies that afforded me time, space and facility to learn my own way into the landscape. Slowly my series and skill began to develop alongside a deep love for HOME and all that means. In 2018 I published a book called HOME to celebrate 10 years painting back in Ireland- it is amazing to feel at home, at home. I still don’t have a clue what I’m doing but I feel enormously fortunate to be still here. My degree is in New Technology but I couldn’t wire a plug to save my life! It’s REALLY, TRULY not about where you start but where you end up! Listening to your gut is all - point your compass in that direction! ❤️ Please note: Discount expires 1st April 2020

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