Have you ever wondered what it's like to work as an artist? I have had my first painting exhibition 30 years ago and have been a full-time painter since. I have been hanging out in studios all my life, and I still love looking at other artists' studios, watching them create, seeing what books they read or how they use their materials. This past year of lockdown living has been quite isolating, so I have decided to open my studio space and invite you to hang out as I paint and find inspiration for my artwork.
This episode of the vlog is a prime example of the non-linear path of any creative endeavour. You see me introduce working on paper alongside oil painting. My mind skips from flying tiger motifs to self-portraits and back to abstract painting, all in a single day. Getting lost in the process is a great way to access another level of creativity and distract myself from what …
I was going through some boxes of drawings and I found a sealed package of tiny etchings that I forgot about. I am going to paint on them while I wait for the large oil on canvases are drying in the studio.
The hero awakens with a strange feeling of otherworldliness caused by a vortex floating through an open window and landing on his head. His mind is firmly stuck inside it, but his body is rooted in this world. The fears that plague him, real and imagined, are momentarily diminished, and in this pause, he is overcome with the burning desire to be free from his prison of conditioned thought. He slowly rises from his bed and begins to walk out into a deserted city. As he is pulled ever deeper into the silent city…
This technophobe got an iPad Pro. I am still waiting for flying cars, but in the meantime I let my mind be blown by mixing “live paints” on this glowing glass thing. To be honest, I found it frustrating to get into it. The concept of layers is central to my painting process, but these digital layers feel so alien. I have spent so much time thinking about “layers” and “masks” recently that they have tweaked how I see paint. These small self-portraits are the first…
I’ve wanted to work on etchings for a while so when I got the chance of making some with the help of an excellent printmaker at The Cork Printmakers I jumped on it. Later that that year I brought the etchings to Italy to paint into them. On the way to Italy the gods saw fit to give me a good dose of food poisoning…
It probably sounds a bit iffy when I say that something came to me in a dream but last night something did. When I walked passed my paintings this morning an image I dreamt about came back to me. I ran over, took up a dirty oil paint brush and sketched it on the back of a canvas. Later, over coffee, I sketched the motif a ...
A few weeks ago I worked with Johnny Bugler to create a set of prints that I could paint on to. The idea came to me when I found some etching proofs I had worked on in 2007. I see these etchings as a background, an elaborate canvas. They are an attempt to create the essence of a bit of linen that was laying around the studio for while, picking up colour debris and studio DNA, before being stretched up and becoming a painting. Working on the etching plates...
I've drawn a lot of inspiration from prints, especially Goya’s work, which I have been returning to again and again for years. Creating prints on the other hand is something that has always alluded me. In many ways printmaking is the exact opposite to the way I paint. Being mindful of timing and doing things in an orderly way is a ...
Earlier this year I found some etching proofs while I was cleaning out the studio. They came from a series of three prints I did in 2007 while on residency in Cill Rialaig, a famine village by the edge of the sea in Kerry which was turned into artist cottages. There were both single plate proofs and some that already had two or three plates printed on to them. I also rediscovered a few jars of delicious...
The oil paintings locked me out, and I couldn’t paint, but luckily my wax for the bronze sculpture saved me. I like working in wax. It’s a great medium that allows you to get lost in the process. I also began painting into these tiny etching prints with acrylic and ink. The line drawing in these is very different from painting in oil. I think the time spent working on the etchings loosened me up enough to return to the oils on canvas, and you can see how I am finding my way back to them towards the end of the video. I am enjoying painting in oils, but the paintings I am working on at the end of …