I grew up in Co Laois where my family still live and I spent my childhood in Ireland.
While studying Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art in London I won a
prestigious award in an exhibition of students’ work from Britain’s leading Art
Colleges held at the Royal Academy. My work has been exhibited at the Mall
Galleries in London, the Royal West of England Academy and the Holburne Museum
in Bath. I have work in several private collections.
I choose to follow the path of figurative drawing and painting. Rather than imitating
what is in front of me, I paint what I want to see and what I want others to see, so my
paintings are addressed to the mind as well as the eye. My recent works are a set of
genre paintings based on the senses, dignifying people doing ordinary things. Touch
takes in all objects of sense, taste relates to touch, smell and hearing can sense
without immediate contact with material and perhaps of the five, sight is sensing at
its highest, able to sense qualities that all things have in common. I work with my
models to experiment with poses and lighting to perfect the image and achieve the
desired effect in order to convey a feeling. Props are important and I show relevant
antique objects still being used to emphasise the mixing of past with present. Where
my work refers to well known old and contemporary masters it borrows their
capacity to add beauty to the everyday and to solve the problem of transforming our
experiences into art. I aim to give people something to look at, to contemplate and
to enjoy.
Sight 1. Viewed through a lens our perspectives may change and the mundane
becomes fascinating.
Sight 2, A shared perspective may augment an experience or two viewers may see
things differently.
Touch 1. Immersing ourselves in this sense can be a revelation.
Touch 2. Exploring the sensory world can be familiar or unexpected.
Taste 1. Eating and drinking together can be one of life’s most enjoyable pleasures.
Taste 2. The pleasure of a delicious flavour may be fleeting or memorable.
Scent 1. The finishing touch to an evening’s preparation.
Scent 2. A subtle enhancement to a shared experience.
Hearing 1 The paradox of sound in a quiet moment.
Hearing 2. The reawakening of a memory or the stirring of a new thought
