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Snakes and Flames

Snakes and Flames

When flames and snakes are your neighbours, they can't help but be part of the story. This rough, heavy-duty cotton canvas has been in my studio for probably eight years. It was unprimed, so I spent months applying thin layers of oil paint before it went anywhere. I like the dryness that comes from all that soakage and the roughness of the surface. There were wildfires near the sea, and you could see the glow of orange at night in the distance. I was grappling with a shape similar to the one I am painting here back in Ireland. I tried it again when I got to Italy, but it wasn't until I saw the shape as a flame that it unlocked itself. On some of the smaller landscapes, these flames appeared …

STUDIO VLOG | Does Water Dream of Falling

STUDIO VLOG | Does Water Dream of Falling

Routes are created by choices, taking you to known spaces or surprises. Paintings take many paths. When I start to work on a new canvas, I have no idea where it will go, literally and figuratively. So I take any chance to travel and bring my work with me in whatever form possible, like these paintings I started in Ireland and brought to Italy. I like the (long!) drive to Italy - it’s a great time for …

Sotheby's | The Age of Disposable Thumbs

Sotheby's | The Age of Disposable Thumbs

I hung out with this painting for a long time. It was worked on in three different studios as the world around it went into a spin. I started it in Berlin in 2019, later bringing it to a religious sculptors studio in Ireland. Then Covid chased us to a shed at the bottom of a tiny garden, where I finished it in May 2021. It's a painting about movement, pace, action, and contemplation. The title speaks volumes about the movement of mankind from …

A Thousand and One Nighttimes

A Thousand and One Nighttimes

I started this painting by drawing sculpture shapes into a large canvas. I was enjoying myself, and it soon became quite busy. I used a light blue wash to tone it down, but I wanted the drawn elements to be visible underneath. The overall effect was that the painting took on the sense of a stone, so I added the large abstract flowers to bring back some life. Then I began to paint in earnest. At first, randomly, then instinctively. At this stage, I put the canvas …

Acrobats and Flowers

Acrobats and Flowers

This is the journey of “Acrobats and Flowers”, one of the oil paintings in my solo show currently on view at John Martin Gallery in London. I got really into painting these black linear shapes on a red canvas but ended up painting over it in the end. It gave me the idea of painting vertical lines as a central feature, and this is the canvas that absorbed …