A collaboration with U2’s Adam Clayton for The Elephant In The Room Movement.
"The effects of war and climate change on population displacement are embodied in this artwork, with rising sea levels and the loss of plant and wildlife, including the habitat of the elephant itself. “
The artwork raises awareness about the urgent need for action on war, climate change, and their impact on our world and our mental health. 🌏
I’m really proud of this association with Fierce Nice - a gallery I've long admired. We’ve been working on this for a while, to get just the right images at the best quality possible. Fierce Nice have created a wonderful (very cool!) online platform with a beautifully curated portfolio of artists and it’s just what I’ve been waiting for. All my editions are strictly limited and each print comes with a signed certificate of authenticity, just especially for you collectors out there. Digitisation was created by the incredible Copperhouse Gallery with the only Cruse Scanner of its type in Ireland.
Founded by Ruan Shiels in 2019, Fierce Nice is a Galway, Ireland-based online art gallery dedicated to showcasing the work of leading Irish contemporary artists. In addition to stocking a carefully curated range of original art, Fierce Nice works collaboratively with artists to design and produce exclusive, museum-grade fine art print editions. The gallery's goal is to support, nurture and champion today's most exciting Irish artists, while providing collectors around the world with an opportunity to acquire remarkable artworks at affordable prices.
I just dropped “Silent Conversations” to GOMA Gallery in Waterford today. It has been accepted into their 6th Annual Members Exhibition.
Waterford City holds a special place in my heart as I went to art college there and I have a series of 7 commissioned paintings hanging in Waterford General Hospital’s pre-natal department. Wonderful to visit there again today.
GOMA’s 6th Annual Members Exhibition is an eclectic exhibition of fine and applied arts featuring work from 34 Artists. The exhibition will showcase a wide range of talent covering multiple disciplines from paintings, sculptures, printmaking, photography and much more.
Exhibition launch – 1st December at 6.30pm. - A festive evening with refreshments and live music.
Exhibition continues until the 7th of January.
I’m absolutely delighted to be able to say that I have joined The Kildare Gallery, in its new location in Kildare Village. Yes I know! A fabulous gallery in a fabulous location.
They are now open for business in the new pop up gallery in the amazing Kildare Village. Find them at unit 100 in the beautiful new part of the village and browse lots of great work for sale by their talented artists. There are also pieces dotted around the village with QR codes that will give you information on the artist and medium.
The artists selected by curator Clare Hartigan for POPA this year travelled to Stradbally Hall two weeks before the festival. We had from Tuesday to Friday to create our artworks to be hung during the Picnic. One each, measuring 12ft x 8ft! Mammoth!. I love painting large but this was to be my largest yet.
All was good until the day before when I had a major panic! How was I going to paint this with basic outdoor paints? Was my image going to work? How on earth was I going to do it on time? What had I signed myself up for? But I had signed myself up, so I just had to get on with it. And how happy I am that I did!
My partners in crime were Adrienne Finnerty, Myra O’Reilly, Michelle Panda-Kelly and Des MacMahon. We were accommodated in the attic of Stradbally Hall itself! Very Downtown Abbey I have to say.
We were set up in the barn, a very large indoor show jumping arena. The boards were already made up for us by the crew and coated with a basic white primer. And we painted all day, every day sometimes until 9.30 at night when we would break for the chats and a few glasses of wine. We were regularly visited by the crew and often joined by '“Squiggly” the resident sign maker for the festival, who provided us with incredible soundtracks for the week.
And there you have it. We had a ball and all finished our pieces on time. It was an incredible experience and such a pleasure to share it with such wonderful individuals. And bonus ….we all got free Electric Picnic Tickets for the weekend!
CURATED BY CLARE HARTIGAN
“The Place of the Picnic Art (PoPA) returns this year with another five artists invited to take residency on-site at Stradbally Estate during the festival build. The Artist spend their days painting large scale paintings for display on the POPA wall in the main stage arena over the weekend of Electric Picnic itself.
The project has once again been curated by artist Clare Hartigan, who has been at the heart of Electric Picnic’s art scene for many years. Clare has invited five artists to join her on POPA this year, following the theme of “Speak to Me” with an emphasis on positive body image and mental health. Each artists has been given the opportunity to work on a very large scale piece and the freedom to speak to the 55,000 strong audience through their art. Each artist is selected simply on their record of working within the visual arts. “There are no proposals or application processes , as this has a tendency to turn artist of a certain type from getting involved. These are the artists that we are looking for. “ Hartigan believes talent , personality, ability and a positive attitude are the main attributes needed to take on the scale and pressure of creating a painting onsite in a working festival build. “As an artist it is a brilliant and challenging experience. The comraderie that develops between the artists is just lovely to witness. There is always something new to learn and sometimes as an established artist you just need to be willing to be taken out of your comfort zone and to see where that can bring you. Having started the project in 2015 , of the experience Hartigan says “Its like the opposite of going on a quiet retreat.…. It is a fast pace environment , often stressful , challenging, but still refreshing , invigorating and extremely fulfilling when you get it right”.
The artists selected are Debbie Chapman. Based in West Dublin, Chapman creates beautifully moody figurative works that ooze emotion. Myra O’Reilly . Limerick based artist O’Reillys uses colour, form and body language to engage the viewer and build stories within her work. Des MacMahon, of Limerick printmakers and LSAD print tutor. With a focus on drawing McMahons work is full of witty conversations that often cuts very close to the bone. Abstract artist Adrienne M Finnerty, who has a background in hypno-psychotherapy, sound movement and colour therapy. Finnerty’s work screams joy ,colour and music . It will make you want to dance . Irish - Peruvian artist Michelle Pando-Kelly whose soothing landscape work is heavily influenced by the great impressionists.
There is something for everyone to enjoy and hopefully you will enjoy them all.”
Finally giving this painting an extra archival varnish. It’s best to leave an oil painting 6mths to a year before applying this varnish, as the paint underneath needs to be completely dry. It’s now good for another 500 hundred years or so! Nice to know that her painting will live on with her wonderful writing for generations to come. The Druid Theatre Company have special plans for this piece that was commissioned to be painted onstage during the performances of ‘Boland - Journey Of A Poet’.
These small canvases 25cm x 20cm x 4cm can look great framed. I like to use a blocky tray frame that compliments the blocky nature of the pieces. See below for some examples. See a full selection in ‘Current Work’.
My two submissions were accepted to the Dunamaise Arts Centre. Open Exhibition showing Nov 26th to Jan 4th. I delighted to be showing at this exhibition, both because this Art Centre is a little gem in the midlands but also because I have great respect for the guest selector, Sharon Murphy.
Covid regulations mean that there will be no opening night but the exhibition is still open to visits from the public. My pieces that will be included are;
COMMITTING TO MEMORY 25cm x 20cm mixed media on canvas
YOUR PLACE OR MINE 30cm X 40cm Mixed Media on Canvas
DEC 02-15, 2021
I'm delighted to have been one of the 8 artists chosen to exhibit at Mason Hayes & Curran annual exhibition this year. MHC are a long-time supporter of "Business to Arts", whose aim is to broker, enable and support creative partnerships between business and the arts. They have one of the most important corporate art collections of Irish and International contemporary art in Dublin.
A digital catalogue of the exhibition will be made available.
Read the article here
Director Garry Hynes, performer Siobhán Cullen, live portrait artist Debbie Chapman. (photo EMJCamera)
A Druid at Home production live streamed from Galway to the world
“My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing”- Marcel Proust
I have long been struck by Marcel Proust’s quote about developing new perspectives and recent global events have brought his words into even sharper focus.
My newest work look at our response to having our movements restricted and simultaneously, the opportunity to view the world through a new lens.
But how does this happen?
While sometimes we make time to contemplate life’s bigger questions, it’s the gradual accumulation of micro-reflections that create our view of the world. These thoughtful pauses occur throughout any average day and often go unnoticed. They lead to observations, realisations or just an appreciation of the moment itself.
Either way, we come to see the world differently and eventually, acknowledge a new reality.
This is the subject of my new paintings at The Montenotte Hotel in Cork from 1st Aug 2020 until Jan 2021 presented by The Gallery Kinsale.
Once considered a relic of the photography era, the art of portrait painting is making a comeback _ think of it as a selfie that takes weeks to complete!
‘Irish Girl - In Preparation For A Short Summer’ 60cm x 80cm.
Excerpts below taken from The New Face of Portrait Painting By Dushku Petrovich. - New York Times Style Magazine
“For centuries, of course, portrait painting was art. But by the second half of the 20th century, it had almost disappeared. By this time, critics routinely announced the death of painting with every new technological and aesthetic innovation. First there was the proliferation of photography, then the ready-made. Then there was the internet, and social media, whose rise seemed to render the medium of painting — not to mention portraiture — completely irrelevant: Why paint someone’s picture in the age of the selfie? Most painters responded by getting weirder, more abstract, more experimental; representational figurative art was anachronistic, inert, crusty — a form of vanity exclusive to the rich. And yet portraiture — in the classic, realist sense — has become increasingly essential (and visible) in the last few years.”
“We live in a time in which reality is almost daily warped in ways that were unimaginable even 18 months ago. We have swiftly entered an era where the very notion of truth, or facts, is considered fungible. As we reassess the various power structures that landed us here, it is stabilizing and reassuring to look at the work of an artist who is clearly in control of her craft, who is able to depict a reality that is material and grounded in recognition — of seeing, in the Facebook age, a painting that looks like who it is meant to.”
“If the news of the world feels every day more like a pulpy political thriller with an unhinged plotline, painters have responded by grounding their work in observable, human reality.”
I was approached by BMYI to propose a collaborative artwork to hang outside the organisation’s building. The brief was to work with the youths to produce an artwork that would brighten the façade and signify the use of the building. The project was to be artist facilitated but youth-led in order to give the participants ownership over the work.
I can’t believe that we only had a week to do this but incredibly they finished it.
Hung in Naas Courthouse, Co. Kildare in Dec 2018. Unveiled in the presence of family, friends and colleagues. I cannot say what a privilege it was to be trusted with this commission. The legacy that these ladies have left behind is huge. I only hope that I have done them justice.
Judge Grainne O’Neill 1971-2018
Ann Nolan,Solicitor 1970 – 2014
The Bandroom, Chapelizod, Dublin held in March 2018
Opening of some wonderful exhibitions at the RHA last night. The highlight for me Grayson Perry, The Vanity of Small Differences. I cannot stress enough how much you must see this exhibition. And I'm sure like me, you'll want to go back again for another look to make sure you take it all in. Photos don't do the work justice as the texture is incredible. The drawing may be naive in style but the execution certainly isn't.
Expulsion From No. 8 Eden Close
Also Upstairs Elizabeth Magill: Headland
Also on show. Niall de Buitléar: Push and Pull, Alex Pentek: Folded Space and Ballinglen Arts Foundation Collection with a worthy fundraiser for a new contemporary arts space. link here
My beautiful muse. You can't Imagine how much fun this has been!
I'll be exhibiting some new work as part of this exhibition in the Crescent Arts Centre, opening next Thursday 3rd August.
