I’ve been wanting to paint this sunset for a long time, the original reference photo was taken in January 2013. I painted it in my homemade oil paints. There’s nothing like a sunset at winter when the tide is going out and the sky is reflected in the wet sand. Twice the magic!
An upturned plastic tank facing the sea last Autumn provided an unusual way of framing a familiar view.
The highlighted parts of a rock I saw last December reminded me of a fetus. This led me thinking about the Kerry baby and Ann Lovett cases in the Eighties and how, up until recently in Irish society, the absolute worst thing for a young woman in Ireland to do was to get pregnant outside of marriage.
Too many lives have been lost to suicide in Ireland and I wanted to use the visual metaphor of a laburnum tree that no longer exists to express this.
I love the winter light on the beach, it feels like the genuine character of the place comes out.
Times of the year when daylight gets rapidly longer or shorter (late March and April, October) tend to bring out vivid dreams or nightmares for me. I wake at dawn. I’m exploring that in-between moment when the dream is still fresh and you’re not sure where you are. The wood of suicides from Dante’s Inferno features in the middle in the door area and various personal memories surround it. Limited palette of ultramarine blue, raw umber and bluish silver. I painted it in casein and it gives a unique look.
In spring and early summer, I give a hand in my sister’s flower field. Planting seed trays and pots and weeding, it can be a busy time. This painting depicts Claire in the farm shed doing flower bunches. It’s late September and near the end of the flower season. I thought the composition would be interesting, surrounded by flowers fanning out and going sideways and down rather than the usual upright direction. I’ve not done a formal painting of her before.
eastcorkpainter 