Artist Statement:
When we make our way through landscape, we are touched and altered by its mood, light and the changing weather. We inhabit it and it inhabits us. This confluence is where my work lies.
I have stood on the shore in the west of Ireland and seen light and mist shifting over sea and land.
I have watched the last rays of sun sweep an orange glow across autumnal vines in Provence.
I have marvelled at yellow gorse flowers, brighter under a leaden sky at dawn.
These moments of alchemy are held in my visual and emotional memory.
You could think that I would be a plein air painter, directly facing the elements but I need to take some distance from the experience.
Standing before nature is emotionally overpowering.
In my studio, I paint with space and time for reflection and work intuitively with texture and colour, adding a mark here, subtracting a colour there,…
The painting is revealed organically and naturally, through me and out of me.
An art work is finished when I reach a balance that does not mirror a specific landscape. Rather, it is a representation of emotions, of connections, a particular atmosphere or energy, a mood felt, a sense of time.
My paintings are rooted in the romantic landscape tradition.
My work is in collections in France, the USA, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada and Australia.
I hold a Bachelor Degree in Fine Art (BFA).
My work is in collections in France, the USA, Australia, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland.
Education:
Fine Art Degree in Painting.
1987-1989 Foundation Art course - Birmingham Polytechnic- Distinction
1989 - 1992 Cheltenham College of Art.- 2:1 with first in Art History with commendation
Exhibitions:
Nineteen Nineteen invited artists, The Hamilton Gallery, Ireland June-August 2019
Event: 'Republic',
Dates: Aug. 1, 2016 - Sept. 30, 2016
Venue: Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
Event: 2016 - ‘A Terrible Beauty is Born’, Group show invited artists, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo, Ireland
Dates: Aug. 1, 2016 - Aug. 30, 2016
Venue: Hamilton Gallery, Sligo, Ireland
Dates: July 1, 2015 - Aug. 31, 2015
Venue: Lowe Holland Gallery, Penryn, Cornwall
Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen - Invited Artists. June 2019, Hamilton Gallery, Ireland
Crazy Jane - Invited Artists. June 2017, Hamilton Gallery, Ireland
Easter 1916- Invited Artists. June 2016, Hamilton Gallery, Ireland
Republic -Invited Artists- September 2016, Olivier Cornet gallery, Dublin, Ireland
Artistic Influences:
Romanticism and the landscape tradition, abstract expressionism, color field painting and minimalism.
Artist Tags:
landscape, ireland, provence, sky, large, modern
