I am a visual artist from Dublin and I live in Waterford in the Sunny South East of Ireland. I originally studied design at The National College of Art and Design in Dublin. After working in industry for some years I became interested in art and design education and subsequently worked in third level education for most of my life. I always went to galleries and museums and looked at paintings.
My work is abstract and I work mainly with watercolour and gouache on paper. I prefer the fluidity of water-based media as opposed to acrylic or oil as it suits my way of working which is quite fast, although I might do many pieces before I am happy with one. I always liked abstract paintings and drawings in particular because they stretched my imagination and I think the viewer can bring their own meaning to them. My work is really just about the experience of being in the world.
My piece in the RUA exhibition is titled Rhythm in Blue. The work came about through experimenting with one of my favourite colours, indigo blue, and trying to create an abstract composition using just a single colour. Abstract works have different qualities to realistic paintings. The lines and shapes and other elements can remind you of may different things, from ripples in water to patterns in nature. The marks are like sounds in music. They have rhythm and I try to create a visual rhythm in painting. There is repetition in the lines but there is variation in the repetition to make it interesting. Somewhere in my mind I was thinking about having been in a garden with a velvety night sky and hearing some jazz music playing somewhere in the distance. It was just a feeling I wanted to communicate and really the important thing is just to get a feeling from the painting too. The work is mounted on black card and framed in a black frame in keeping with the feeling of the night, and the framer used art glass to cut out any reflections so you can see the work better.