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SOLD OUT!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. -
SOLD OUT!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!. -
SOLD OUT!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. -
SOLD OUT!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. -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 60cm x 60cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €1250.00 'Chugam' is from the Irish 'Cuig' - to come - Chugam is 'to me'. At times when I feel as though I'm 'standing in a gap' in life, 'Chugam' feels like a mantra, an invocation. Willing myself forward. I feel that when standing on the shoreline, facing forward, in to and harnessing the power and energy of a frightening (yet possibly fabulous!) future. -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 60cm x 60cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €1250.00 A meditation on solitude and connection. A wise man - Michael Kirby - who has been a great influence on my work, showed us that everything that lives is connected. While I'm more than fine being alone, the quiet time of lockdown reminded me how my inner life is nourished by my time out in the world. I am richer for connection, community and having a sense of place in the world - all of that helps me feel at home in myself! -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 70cm In slip frame, ready to hang. Inhabitants of Spike Island - whether monks or prisoners - must have had a particular relationship with time. The Covid Lockdown time, and spending so much of it in isolation gave us all pause to reflect on time and how we spend it. When you start to think of time as a man made construct - it can get quite loose or dense. Eitherway, during the quiet time I had time to be in nature and to think of all the things I would do post-lockdown. First up was to see and be in the sea - There will be Time - is a tribute to looking forward, even when things are sticky and having fate that there is time - and good times - before us! -
SOLD OUT!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. -
SOLD OUT!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 JimenezI 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? -
SOLD OUT!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. -
SOLD OUT!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. -
SOLD OUT!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. -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 45cm x 35cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 45cm x 35cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00 -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €745.00During my final year in secondary school, I had, for a brief period of time, a substitute English teacher. I remember this woman for many reasons but principally because of here peculiar analogies. She told us we should always remember that a good story was like a fish with its tail in its mouth!In the decades that has swooshed past since I left school, I have forgotten a LOT but I could never shake that analogy! And so here I am at the end of one collection facing towards the next one. Starting Over feels like a culmination but also a beginning of the shape of things to come in my future work, beyond the precipice. -
SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. When painting in response to Spike Island, I thought often (almost obsessively) about how it must have felt to be captive - as opposed to captivated on / by the island. Inhabitants - be they monks or prisoners - must have looked at the sea and the far shore - with longing. I imagine imprisonment is difficult at any time but to have civilian life literally in your sites must have been extra challenging. I imagine their proximity to the shoreline, gave island inhabitants endless estuaries in to which their minds could wander - satisfying and nourishing their longing for liberty and home.
Contemporary Irish Landscape Painting
