A Portrait Marathon at Green Acres, Wexford
In July 2022, as part of Wexford’s ‘Art in the Open’ painting festival, I painted 28 portraits over three days. The event took place at Green Acres Gallery in Wexford Town. The portraits were painted in oils and took roughly half an hour. It’s certainly hard work painting so many portraits in such a short…
Finishing a painting begun twenty years ago
While studying in Florence in my twenties my home was an attic room in a convent run by Irish nuns in Fiesole. It was called the convent of San Girolamo (or Saint Jerome), just up the hill from the Medici Villa. There were images of him everywhere. Jerome seemed to be one of the Renaissance…
Neoprimitive Narcissus
At the top of this painting, in the far distance, a rocket is launching into space. Two figures in the middle distance observe. Most of the picture is taken up with a naked figure ignoring this scene, crouched with his bum in the air, gazing at his own murky reflection in a pool of water.…
Asymmetrical Warfare
Madmen we are, but not quite on the pattern of those who are shut up in a madhouse. It does not concern any of them to discover what sort of madness afflicts his neighbour, or the previous occupants of his cell; but it matters very much to us. The human mind is less prone to…