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Painting has always been a vital part of my life, since I was a child, and I've always been intensely passionate about it. Painting is a very complex process to describe in words, as it is by definition dynamic and multifaceted. It is difficult to talk about one aspect of it in isolation, but my relationship with colour has been a particularly absorbing journey for me. I started out using a very limited palette of four colours and have over the last twenty years or so, broadened out into using the full colour spectrum. I have developed a confidence in using colour, where I feel that I can let the colours free-wheel, so to speak, and it feels to me, that they arrange and assemble themselves into their rightful positions subconsciously, without too much intervention.
I spent four years in the late 70's and early 80's attending a degree course at Sheffield College of Art, which in my day had a strong bias towards figurative painting, which was quite a rare thing in those days, as abstract painting dominated the scene. Because of this, I was encouraged to develop figuratively through life drawing and being inspired by visiting artists, archive material etc. It was here that I cemented the influences that were later to develop into my own personal style of painting. Art College taught me, that everything and anything was possible. The day I left college, was the day I began the journey towards a personal style, and that journey hasn't ended but continues to develop and evolve as I mature as a painter.
If I had to describe myself as a painter, I would say that I have a traditional approach to painting, in that I am very aware of the process of picture making, in that I structure my work around observational drawing and use compositional devices that I have developed and learnt through experience and by looking at past painter's, but that I have a spontaneity and originality that comes from a strong affinity for the decorative, this combined with my love of colour allows me to push through some conventions, enabling me to express myself in a unique and personal way.
Mattisse, describes this process in his 1908 Notes of a Painter: 'Those who work in a preconceived style, deliberately turning their backs on nature, miss the truth. An artist must recognize when he is reasoning, that his picture is an artifice; but when he is painting, he should feel that he has copied nature. And even when he departs from nature, he must do it with the conviction that it is only to interpret more fully'
Solo Exhibitions
Degree show, Sheffield 1982
Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford 1987
Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford 1996
Set in Sunlight, Guinness Gallery, Dublin 1997
Recent Paintings, Guinness Gallery, Dublin 1998
Interiors, Dalkey Arts Gallery, Dublin 2003
Recent works, Dalkey Arts Gallery, Dublin 2004
Recent paintings, James Adams, Dublin 2005
Two-Three Person Exhibitions
Solomon Gallery, Dublin (with Elizabeth Cope) 1986
Blackcombe Gallery, Cork (with John Younge and Robert Ryan) 1998
Bridge Gallery, Dublin (with Aidan Gaffney) 1999
Bridge Gallery, Dublin (with Aidan Gaffney) 2001
International Exhibitions
First International Biennal of Female Art, Stockholm, Dec. 1994 - March 1995
Second International Biennal of Female Art, Stockholm, Dec. 1995 - March 1996
L'Imaginaire Irlandais, Chateaudun, France, March - April 1996
L'Imaginaire Irlandais, Chateaudun, France, Oct. 2004
Affordable Art Fair, London, Oct. 2005
XIXeme Salon des Arts Plastiques de la Rochelle, May, 2005
Awards
Wilkinson Scholarship 1979
National Portrait Exhibition, Dublin 1985 (Prize Winner)
Invitee d'Honneur Salon de la Rochelle 2005
Arts Council 'Culture Ireland' Award 2005
Public Collections
Trinity College, University of Dublin
Saint James's Hospital Foundation
Office of Public Works (OPW)
Film and Televison (Paintings featured)
BBC Ballykissangel (1998)
RTE Off the Rails (2001)
Tara Road (2005)
RTE Late Late Show (2006)