I have been painting and creating for over 30 years but early in life, I believed art just wasn’t going to be a viable career, so I worked in all sorts of jobs, before deciding to follow my dream and attend Art College, graduating with a First-Class Honours Degree in Fine Art Painting from the Centre of Creative Arts & Media, Galway in 2015. It took me another six years of juggling conventional work with painting and completing a Business Masters before I made the decision to finally devote myself full-time to my art. You will now find me in my studio space in a beautiful cottage by the sea in Erris, Co Mayo surrounded by the wild and abundant beauty of the rural landscape and miles of sandy beaches along the West Coast of Ireland.
The landscape and changing weather are a constant source of new inspiration. Capturing light and atmosphere is at the core of my work. The magical, fleeting essence of light is captured in the work so that we can contemplate the beauty and intensity of these transient moments a little longer before the temporality of the setting subsides and disappears to time.
I paint mostly using oils on stretched canvas, board and aluminium. My paintings are built up in layers to create a richness and depth of colour and experience. I encapsulate the feelings and sensations encountered in the landscape through light and spaciousness in the work. One collector has described my work as “having a delicate touch, with stark contrast using marks in a very minimal way to express the grandeur of the picture.”
I am grateful to have received funding over the years from Mayo County Council Arts Service and the Travel & Training Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. I am a member of Visual Artists Ireland and I have exhibited both nationally and internationally. My work has been commissioned and bought by many art collectors.