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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? -
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‘Tis (All before us)'
Oil on Canvas,
180cm x 120cm
‘Tis – the west of Ireland abbreviation of ‘it is’ is a term I love to hear. The softness of it fills me with affection.
‘Tis was also the title of Frank McCourt’s second memoir. Following on from his best-selling ‘Angela’s Ashes’which portrayed the bleakness of Ireland in the earlier half of the last century.
While we still enjoy significant rain fall, Ireland of today is vibrant. In spite of challenges economic and social, we are as a people – I feel, forward looking. And our landscape is abundant – it holds and inspires us all.
‘Tis’– this painting, is about looking forward. It was made in many, many layers and gave its own set of challenges. When composing a painting, I am not looking for likeness but sensation – the feeling of coming home or being home. Place is important but not in a geo map specific way. I am creating sense of place.
Just as happiness is never truly a thing but more a feeling. I am endeavouring to evoke that feeling when you round the Irish coastline and the views, as Seamus Heaney so beautifully set the scene in his poem Postscript “.. catch the heart off guard and blow it open”.
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Threshold
Oil On Canvas: 150cm sq €9,250.00 In Slip Frame Ready To Hang‘Threshold’ marked the beginning of so much newness for me.
After years (and years!) of treading water and often struggling to keep afloat, my painting practice and by association my life, suddenly and almost imperceptibly hit a growth spurt.
Making my largest paintings coincided with finally finding a building that would be my home and house my studio and showroom. Built pre-1900, ‘Threshold’ was created as part of an exhibition to honour the space and all that had gone before and was yet to be.
Poet and philosopher John O’Donoghue wrote beautifully of change and emergence. I loved his notion to ‘ bless the space between us’ as I felt it marked that special time between the past and the future.
“The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival”
I have realised life is never linear and change is as constant as the tide. Even in trying times, we must believe in perpetual motion.
Forward is always a direction. Our evolution is illuminated by blessings and possibility, but you must believe in possibility (often things you can’t yet see, but can just about feel!).
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A Turn For Grace
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'In West Clare' (We are Eternal)
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'From Valentia' (Above us only Sky)
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Swansong
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Flume
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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 -
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'Wonderland'
Oil On Canvas: 160cm x 160cm In Slip Frame Ready To Hang To be full of future – dreams, plans, schemes and such – is a lovely, latent kind of energy. That’s how I felt when making this painting. As a rookie artist I painted in a traditional context – working out in the landscape, making paintings in response to place. As my practice deepened, the response has become more intuitive. I’ve learned to trust myself and the work, and to understand (to paraphrase the late, great Mary Oliver) ‘My work is loving the world…, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished’. Composition has taken on a more vital, vibrant quality – rather than thinking in terms of foreground, lines, proportions etc, making paintings now feels like composing music. It is beyond looking and seeing and involves a sort of deep cellular listening – to hear, but mostly feel the rhythm of nature. My paintings are made with oils in many layers. Creating this big painting was a joy. Pregnant with possibility, it was in and of itself a wonderland. With every layer it seemed to unfold, evolve and reveal itself to me. Often painting feels like magic - a particular kind of alchemy. It fills me with wonder and a special energy – an illumination radiating from the inside out. -
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
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SOLD OUT!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’.
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SOLD OUT!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!
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SOLD OUT!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
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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!.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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SOLD OUT!Oil on board 30cm x 25cm In slip frame ready to hang Inspired by my recent solstice swim, It was the most beautiful evening on Garretstown strand. The sun cast the most glorious, long shadow but there were very few folks on the beach and scarcely anyone in the sea. Having the sea to myself was intensely pleasurable. Invigorating, it felt like washing off a season – I thought of Van Morrison’s ‘To be Born again’ – and understood the immersion to be a special baptism of sorts. I slept so well that night – dreaming I was cocooned in the arc of a wave.
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SOLD OUT!Oil on board 25cm x 20cm In slip frame ready to hang Over the years, I have always felt comfortable living on islands – which is no surprise given our Island home. Reading Tim Winton’s book of the same title brought home (ha!) to me the pure and tender qualities of island life. It frames our life and gives it context (on same and for context Winton’s Island home is Australia!) Most recently, I found myself on small islands in the middle of Lough Mask while fishing with my Dad. At ‘lunchtime’ we moor at one of the small islands - the sounds of the shore lapping, bird life, oars on water, reels spinning and yarns being spun by fishermen is a lovely backdrop to memories of that place and time. It is a place I feel very inspired by and at home.
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SOLD OUT!Oil on board 25cm x 20cm In slip frame ready to hang Spinning out to the beach – straight from the studio – is one of my greatest pleasures. In under an hour I can be in the sea – it is nothing short of glorious. And there are two pristine beaches to choose from. This painting is a throwback to a lovely evening on the beach earlier this Summer and a lovely reminder of that sunny state of mind – regardless of the weather.
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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.
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SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00
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SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 50cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €845.00
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SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €795.00
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SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 120cm x 120cm In slip frame, ready to hang. At a young(-er!) and (more!) impressionable age, I read May Sarton's A Journal of a Solitude. I remember being floored by the line 'Hope, but for what?'. The lack of hope or vision or joie de vivre struck me as utterly sad and terrifying too. I have known the feelings of being rudderless and at times been terribly lost. I think that is part of the human experience. Many of us anticipated the recent Covid quiet period with dread - it smacked of 'the end is nigh' and yet on the other side of it, many of us feel renewed and are facing forwards with some hope. And we are certain what we are hoping for. On the other side of solitude, I think the things we are hoping and hopeful for are not 'things' - there is a communion in that too. It reminds me of the words of another great writer, Mary Oliver:
'Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
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SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 124cm x 112cm In slip frame, ready to hang. SOLD You have to keep your wits about you in the sea. Sinking or swimming are ultimate options. As a very recent - and occasional - sea swimmer, I love the immediacy of immersion. It's impossible to feel wishy washy about the sensations. 0.5 seconds after immersion you are fully alive - senses accelerated, at absoute optimum. Although I am in possession of a rambly mind - and prone to projecting forwards or harking backwards, I am a fan of being in in the moment. Sea swimming helps me be 'all in' and be fully alive one moment at a time.
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SOLD OUT!Oil on canvas 90cm x 90cm In slip frame, ready to hang. €2950.00 Silver Strand on Sherkin Island has a dreamy quality - it is a time and place. And it is time out of time. 'Holding On & Letting Go' is a theme that flows through my work. Inspiration is a feeling - sometimes fleeting - and sensations like how I felt at sunrise on Silver Strand are often like water in my hands. I hope this painting goes some way to capturing all of that.