About Statement
I am an artist and yoga teacher based in Dublin.
My inspiration comes from the flowers that I always have in the house, the flora and fauna around me and in botanic gardens I visit.
My work is impressionistic and playful, allowing the media of watercolour and ink to dictate the way a painting goes. I may start off with a reference sketch or an idea but the interplay of colour, form and the bleeding of inks with pigment lead the image to unexpected places. Working with the wet-on-wet technique, I have to work very rapidly, so the images are very loose whether the subject is flowers, people, or animals.
The exuberance of the paint marks and high chrome colour palette are intended to be celebratory, almost loud reminders of the miracle that our natural world represents.
Like the flowers and plants, the people populating the work have their own character. They are from imagined scenarios or associations, and draw on a life-long practice of life drawing, the concentration and application of which is similar to a meditation practice.
A woman floating up from a genie lamp or cartwheeling reflect a mood or a corporal experience.
As a yoga teacher, I spend long amounts of time on my head, this can help shift perspective. I use the sensations and freedom yoga gives as another inspiration and often practice yoga to free the body and mind before approaching the blank page with a dripping brush.
Letting go of attachment to an outcome is part of the practice on and off the mat.
Some of the imagery is a response to a thought or an idea, or a visual prompt from the extensive and varied imagery coming at us all day on screens. Without overthinking it, I react in a spontaneous way and the work evolves through its own process.
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The work of Francise Petrovitch, Marlene Dumas, Cy Twombly, Claudia Lowry, Emil Nolde, David Hockney and others are all inspirations. The growth of interest in works on paper as evidenced in fairs like the Parisian ‘Drawing Now’ and Art on Paper in Brussels have also been a prompt to work in a looser way.
Education:
National College of Art and Design (NCAD) BA hons in Fine art.
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