• Swansong

    My Dad Mick has fished the Mayo Lakes – Lough Mask & Lough Carra every May in tandem with the emergence of the May Fly. Some years more prolifically than others but it is always a place of joy for him. By proxy, genes or otherwise, his joy has become mine and I love to join him on these expeditions which then seep into my own work.  Before Covid we celebrated his 50th year fishing in his home from home, Partry – the lovely village nestled between both lakes. We had a hooley -  a wonderful celebration of time well spent amongst great lifelong friends.  Then nothing! The Covid pause put paid to that particular pleasure and we had to wait it out for years. My Dad had back surgery and was slower on his pins but his lovely essence and energy was buoyed by fast horses and slow golf.  It was glorious to finally return to Lough Mask. I doubted my Dad would be robust enough for long lake days. It was an illumination to see the vitality of place, people and nature infuse him. It energized him entirely. He was ginger-ish boarding the boat the first day but jumping off by the end of the week, exuberant!  Doing what you love really, truly is a lifeforce and nature is magic Oil On Canvas: 160cm x 160cm In Slip Frame Ready To Hang  
  • A Turn For Grace

    9,650.00

    A Turn For Grace

    I read a headline many years ago titled ‘A stage for the performance of heaven’. The article* discussed how the Calder Valley had been poet Ted Hughes ‘tuning fork’.  I loved the notion of inspiration as a wide open plain. It seemed boundless, yet active.     I have the article pinned above my desk – it feels like a talisman, a reminder to stay in my lane, plough on and stretch out into infinite possibilities.    It seems the sea is both my ‘stage’ and ‘tuning fork’.  it is the place I draw inspiration and it is a deep well. Making this painting was long and challenging. Made in fifty-plus layers of heavy oils, it was my largest sea painting to date, and the process, while (comma) often filled with joy, was at times tumultuous.   Hughes referred to Scout Rock (the view from his childhood home) as ‘"my spiritual midwife at the time, and my godfather ever since".  It is the perfect summation of my relations with the sea – a place of possibility and renewal. I am guided by it. This painting being a case in point. When the going got tough, a little too challenging, a gap seemed to appear in a wave and guide me on to grace. Oil On Canvas: 152cm x 152cm In Slip Frame Ready To Hang
    
    
  • Nocturne

    9,250.00

    Nocturne

    Inspired by time fishing with my father on the Mayo Lakes, Nocturne is evocative of days ending and that very special light particular to the low sun on the lakes. I am a fair weather fisher but time on the lake with my Dad is nothing short of glorious. It is time out of time. Even though senses are accelerated with the cut and thrust of the boat traversing the waves, sideways rain and all the slip-slop sounds of water, reels and bird life – time feels somehow suspended. The experience is utterly elemental and yet really, very restful but stimulating.  Beyond the shoreline, out on that horizon there is a promise of magic and reward. Great days - time well spent – the best currency – before the waves roll us back to shore and home. Oil On Canvas: 150cm x 150cm In Slip Frame Ready To Hang  
     
  • Begin To Hope

    8,750.00
    Oil on canvas 180cm x 120cm In slip frame ready to hang These larger paintings have been stirring inside me for the past few years. It has been a pleasure to see them finally come to fruition in the studio. I am forever saying my work is ‘holding on and letting go’ . There may be more robust, verbose words for my process but the practice of turning up, letting go of all my notions and hang ups and holding on for inspiration, flow and the good stuff (that feels to my mind like fire)  is essentially how I find and harness inspiration. Begin to Hope feels like a line I am making by walking, beyond the fertile void, it is of itself spilling out into the world at large        
  • Mexican Odyssey

    4,950.00
    Mixed media 120cm x 100cm  
  • Lands Edge

    3,950.00
    Oil on canvas 140cm x 74cm In slip frame ready to hang This painting typifies much of the push and pull at play in my work and could equally be called ‘Holding On & Letting Go’. It was painted over the course of a year in many layers – this painting and I had something of a long loose dance before we capitulated towards each other.  Lands Edge is to my mind about standing your ground – staying within the magic limitlessness of imagination – and not getting sucked into the nonsensical void.  Out beyond the churning chaos there is magic. You don’t always have to see it – but you must always believe in it, for as Roald Dahl said ‘only those who believe in magic will find it’.      
  • Oil on Canvas, 120cm x 100cm in slip frame. €3950.00
  • Oil on canvas 40" x 30" (i.e. 102cm x 76cm) Ready to hang in slip frame The sea adjoining Ciarraí can often catch colours of the tropics - turquoise and fizzy greens that don't quite match our inky skies. I have been greatly infleunced by Sorolla this past year - visiting his studio in Madrid and seeing his shows in London and Dublin. I wonder how he might have painted our sea - with all the drama but not so much sun, I imagine the Spaniard may have had much to say in paint.
  • At Valentia

    2,550.00
    Oil on canvas 40" x 30" (i.e. 102cm x 76cm) Ready to hang in slip frame I am a fan of islands but despite having spent much of my painting time in Ciarraí, I have only recently started to document Valentia island.  I love the sea-crossing - short as it is - and Bray Head, and the lapping water at ever side. I love too that you can go way, way high up and low down again into the sea. This is one of my first paintings from this place - it was made following a stormy Summers crossing.
  • Oil on canvas 100cm x 70cm Ready to hang in slip frame I made this painting while on a painting fellowship at The Ballinglen Artists Foundation in Ballycastle, Co Mayo. Dun Bristé - or the stack - is a tiny landmass just off Downpatrick Head. It’s a sanctuary for birds now but legend has it that the chunk of rock broke away from the mainland when St Patrick struck the earth with his stick in response to a naysayer who doubted his Christian doctrine! Either way it is striking and I love to paint it!
  • Oil on canvas 100cm x 70cm Ready to hang in slip frame  
  • Oil on canvas 100cm x 70cm Ready to hang in slip frame This painting was inspired by a night walk along the shoreline. There is quite a bit of gold in this painting - a departure for me - that I think captures the otherworldliness of the sea at night-time.
  • On The Way Home

    2,240.00
    Oil on canvas 90cm x 60cm In slip frame ready to hang I’m not good at remembering road no’s or indeed mountains names so I fondly refer to the mountains midway between my parents home and mine as  – The In-betweeners!    This painting was completed on a Monday morning following a lovely weekend at my folks. I had been a little ‘stuck’ with the painting but when driving home, across the country from my parents’  house the evening before, the answer was literally staring me in the face. A golden orb, the most glorious sunset guided me home.  It’s more literal than my usual work but I liked it, so I’ve left it!    
  • Oil on canvas 90cm x 60cm In slip frame ready to hang I’m honestly not sure if this is a sun-rise or sunset  - and surely one becomes another on this magical orb of ours. I took the title from ‘Sail On’ the gorgeous song by Interference. I listened to it a lot recently around the time of Maurice Desmond’s death. Maurice was a wonderful Cork painter, a true contemporary landscape painter. He was one of the first artists I met when I came to Cork. He was entirely himself and always lovely, kind and encouraging to me. His legacy is long, his work speaks for itself. I think he might live forever. I will never forget him    
  • The Fertile Void

    1,495.00
    Oil on canvas 60cm x 60cm In slip frame ready to hangI had the most enchanting conversation with someone recently about the strength of stillness and the power of darkness. In long Summer days, darkness (metaphorical and physical) feels less compelling, but my friend spoke of how germination requires  darkness in order to cast deep roots  into firm soil. The silent shoreline of this painting seemed to me a place to pause and enjoy the inherent (restorative) stillness we all have capacity for – when we shelve all the shizzle. I love to think there is a fertile void in all of us.    
  • Tidal Sensations

    1,295.00
    Oil on canvas 60cm x 60cm In slip frame ready to hang
  • Oil on canvas 56cm x 51cm In slip frame ready to hang My mind gets a bit blown when I think about how the opposite end of the shoreline I am standing in, is washing someone else’s feet on the other side of the world. It is entirely mind-blowing but also enormously reassuring – as if to affirm that everything that lives is connected. The cyclical nature of tides, sun rise – sun set, seasons and the rhythms of our own biology all pre-date time itself and point to an innate knowingness and our  ability to be harmonious – in sync – or at the very least community minded!.    
  • Oil on Canvas 61cm x 46cm In slip frame ready to hang This painting might appear a bit maverick in this collection but, as with them all, was painted in response to a time and place. In this case. The time being a VERY hot day in my studio. It began life as a demo (for my Abstracting the Landscape Online painting course) but as the layers progressed I realised it was harking back to a recent landscape I had visited. ‘Heatwave’ was painted at the tail end of the collection and the beginning of my next body of work, so it literally is the shape of things to come.  
  • Oil on canvas 76cm x 51cm Ready to hang in slip frame Mayo has some magic places, DownPatrick Head being a case in point. It's the edge of Ireland and not for the faint-hearted. The sea lashes it for much of the time - making for dramatic sea spray and the foamiest, thundering current but then at other times it is all calm - like at day break when the sun steals its way in silence into the sky. The stormy times are not forgotten, but behind us now as we begin again.  
  • Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame ready to hang There is a softness to this painting that belies its layers. Oftentimes those paintings that seem most resolved, take the longest to make. It is not unlike life. I find, as most people do – when I am a bit stirred up or bothered by something a walk on the beach is the cure. The expanse of space, salt between my toes, the spray of salt water on my feet and the rhythmic breath of the tide puts whatever is bothering me into proportion. It's as if a type of tidal tenderness puts a balm on my tender places.    
  • Sea Change

    895.00
    Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame ready to hang Sometimes we feel 'all at sea' and sometimes it's time for a sea change and then other times - most times - it seems that we are on the other side of change. I believe in, and love perpetual motion. So it's no surprise that this is one of my favourite poems and I think it goes some way to capturing the tone of this painting.

    Oceans

    by Juan Ramon Jimenez

     I have a feeling that my boat

    has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing...Silence...Waves...--Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
  • Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame ready to hang It seems a long time ago now, but there was a period when I lived overseas for 15 years. I feel so entrenched in Ireland now – like on a molecular level – I can scarcely fathom all that time apart. Kerry was absolutely fundamental in re-enchanting my connection with home. Feeling utterly ‘at home’ in Ireland has been possibly my greatest delight in life and stems from time spent in Kerry when I first returned. My first residencies were at Cill Rialaig in Ciarraí – I spent much of my first years back in Ireland painting there. It has underpinned my work as an artist and provided a spectacular canvas upon which my life and love of this land has unfolded. I have felt utterly guided every step of the way – there is MASSIVE magic there – a particular kind of Kerry Kismet.     
  • After Nephin

    895.00
    Oil on canvas 46cm x 36cm In slip frame ready to hang Memory plays a huge part in my work. Recalling time and place sensations in all its subjectivity is very much part of the push-pull and play of reconstructing memories. After Nephin was painted following my recent fishing trip with my Dad – it was a glorious time in a wonderful place. Unforgettable really. Yet when I come to paint it – I think mostly of sensations.  Weather rolling in, the boat setting off from the shore and rolling out across the lapping lake. The mountains are there -  and the moody sky  and water - but I think what I am trying to capture is that  precious time which feels like water in our hands.      
  • Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame ready to hang I'm recently returned from a fishing trip with my Dad and our lovely friend John on Lough Mask. While I feel very at home in Partry – the very special village (populated by extra special people) where my Dad has visited annually for fishing for over 50 years. There is something about the stillness and perpetual motion of being in the boat, on the lake – a particular sensation of time and space that can only be explained as my home on the lake.     
  • Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00
     
  • Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00
     
  • Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00
     
  • Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm Ready to hang in slip frame As an Irish landscape painter, I have great reverence towards (and am inspired by) our great history in the field.  As islanders, the Sea is a constant theme in Irish art - we are steeped in it - literally and figuratively. It is very much a part of us. It is important to me to reference the Sean Nós (The Old Ways) while progressing my own work and I felt this painting went someway to creating an accommodation between both.  
  • Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm Ready to hang in slip frame Some paintings make themselves. This ones was made on a painting fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation and seemed to bring my work onwards - in a sure way, forwards - towards new paintings I wanted to make. Which is just as well as the felt the path behind had fallen away.
  • Contentment

    645.00
    Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm Ready to hang in slip frame Another of my happy places! This was painted in my studio but harks back to happy times close to the boglands in Ciarraí. It is, in recent years, a contentment to me to take inspiration out in the landscape before incorporating it into the rhythm of a studio schedule. For a long time, I felt perpetually on residency - out in some landscape or other, it was enchanting but often unsettling. Now a new studio rhythm feels an enhancement, an orderly way to tap into influences and mine memories.    
  • Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm Ready to hang in slip frame There is a motion in the ocean that helps - I think - to move forwards out of 'stuckness' and  onwards. The constancy of the sea and holding on and letting go are a constant theme for me.  
  • Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm Ready to hang in slip frame This painting is another song of praise, an ode to the sea as it renews, invigorates and keeps us buoyant - leading us homewards.
  • Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm Ready to hang in slip frame There is a moody, broodiness to the Mayo landscape - sometimes one can feel almost between worlds. I have heard it said 'the veil is thin' there - as if our ancestors are close by. I take this to be a comfort, and maybe a guiding hand that leads me and my work onwards.

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