Butterflies and Starlight

This painting is part of a group exhibition in Fota House in June 2026. The Mór Artists collective was founded in 2023 to help rural artists living in East Cork / West Waterford to connect better and get more opportunities for exhibiting and selling work. We were invited to submit work based on a theme of boxes and under the title ‘within / without’. This image combines 3 boxes. An old churning container for butter. A box with an inner blue lining that had mysterious white stains on the upper side. And a glass box displaying various butterfly species. So I put them together and came up with this surreal piece.

Bedroom at Dawn

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.