The painting I have in this years RUA Annual exhibition is part of a series of paintings I've been doing for a few years now, that have a more landscape structure to them. They are not based on any particular landscapes but a more of an amalgamation of places I've been to, experiences I've had and ideas and images I come across. My process of painting embraces both logic and reason and also chance and accident.
I allow myself to be guided by each individual piece. The work itself exists on the borderline between abstraction and representation but also between real and spirit worlds. I want my work to operate as a doorway, to invite the viewer into a new space, to offer an invitation to journey.
I've been using collage a bit in recent work, ordnance survey maps, hand made paper, wall paper and paper I've painted myself. In Many paths to follow, I've used ordnance maps as the collage element. The places in the maps aren't important in themselves, but are from the general part of Ireland I live in.
Visually I love maps, and they represent an idea of searching and looking for something. For me painting is an act of searching, of trying to find something through the use of pigment and the application of paint.
The way I work is largely intuitive, painting for me starts a process of discovering unintended connections and relationships, of trying to search for reason and meaning in each work that emerges. The first marks and shapes create the environment for a process that requires me to constantly re-evaluate what's important so I can find out what the painting will be. I feel as if I'm in a relationship with the painting, it guides me as much as I control it.