I am a Cork based visual artist and from a young age loved to draw and paint. I have taken courses in oil, watercolour and acrylic as well as pastel with Victor Richardson. My work forms part of the permanent collection at the Cork School of Music.
I am a full-time artist but previously worked in the area of scientific writing and lectured in Statistics at University College Cork. I have a Degree in Social Science from UCC and an MSc. in Data Analysis and Research from Trinity College Dublin.
Artist Statement about
this collection of work
‘Room at the Mark I’
My work is a visual representation of deep seated themes that underscore human existence. Using palatte knives and acrylic paint, I strive to communicate the interplay between humans as individuals and the society we’ve created to govern our behaviour.
My work is inspired by a generational tradition of competitive sailing which has versed in me the vitality it creates. The sport also drives me to contemplate the undercurrent of our instincts, the mores we have developed to manage our lives and our willingness, if not our need, to adhere to established rules.
Central to my paintings, and represented by boats and sails, is the theme of competition and its attributes - skill, determination, energy, persistence, patience, joy, discipline, despair, individualism, community, fair play and winning. In tandem, my work generally includes symbols of societal order in the form of an official vessel or buoy.
The sailing environment is in constant flux with the changing sea and weather and in my paintings the palatte knife helps to portray the dynamic and fleeting state of each subject in this fluid setting. The typically monochromatic background, shadowing the precariousness of the sea and weather, pushes the central subjects to the fore, commanding the viewers attention.
My work presents competitive sailing as a representation of human nature. An arena contrived by us providing the opportunity to experiment with our true selves.
The work invites viewers to think about the nature of society as we live it while we simultaneously harbour, and sometimes reglease the impulsion to be the best that we can be.