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At its best the Irish landscape is bright and strong, flickering with shadows and a half thought expectancy of its undoing that only enhances the moment. For the plein-air landscape painter the clarity of light is only matched by the struggle to catch each moment on canvas. Most landscape painters solve the problem of immediacy by working hard and fast, placing marks down in two’s and three’s that trip over themselves in random succession to in some way describe that living moment. As a landscape painter I work entirely plein-air, ‘in the open air’. This ...

Michael McSwiney

Michael Mc Swiney (b. Cork 1969) began his studies at the Crawford College of Art and Design. He graduated with an Honours Degree in Fine Art from the National College of Art and Design in 1991. For several years Michael travelled and worked in many countries such as Norway, India and Egypt. In the late nineties he returned to live in Ireland where he had several solo exhibitions and exhibited his work at An t`Oireachtas and Iontas, where he won the painting prize in 2000. Since 2000 Michael has been based in ...

Saul Cathcart

Saul Cathcart is a Cornish artist from the Launceston area. He holds a degree in Fine Art Sculptrure from the Winchester School of Art, Hampshire. He has now returned to his Cornish roots where he has remained ever since. “(…) each painting in Saul Cathcart’s Irish collection develops a small but fascinating narrative. Most landscape pictures are what they are, a snapshot that evokes the place, the shapes, the light. Saul’s work does this brilliantly, but it also does more. Alongside the ...

Oonagh Hurley

“…Oonagh Hurley, who looks to be a very promising artist, is clearly cognisant of what is going on in contemporary painting and takes it into account in works that are made with great verve and intelligence. She refers to the workings of memory and her pictures are fluid, multi-layered distillations of scenes and moments, full of energy and mystery.” Aidan Dunne’s review of graduate shows in Visual Art in The Irish Times, Wed, June 24th, 2009

Elizabeth O’Callaghan

"My work is an exploration of colour inspired by the sensations experienced first hand, and also from memory, of the sea and landscape. I hope to recreate that immediacy and energy in my work through colour, texture and shape. I want to evoke a world of emotion and imagination in the work. I tend to abandon brushstrokes in favour of pouring, dripping, dragging and spraying the paint onto the canvas, sometimes letting the paint lead where it wants to ...

André van Schaijk

During my last year in the Crawford I concentrated on the landscape of Slievenamon. Initially my work was small, but in the end I was working on quite a large scale. Recently I was looking at a series of small abstract monoprints I had made in 2003. I felt challenged to work with abstract forms on a larger scale. Working in this way was like opening a door into new territory, and I felt exhilarated and relieved to be working abstractly. With each canvas I discover anew an inner landscape, ...

Paul Lewin

Predominantly a painter of the coast and sea, Paul Lewin has emerged as one of the leading contemporary landscape painters in the Southwest. With over 35 solo exhibitions, and many more mixed shows over the past 15 years, his name is well known throughout the West Country and further afield. He has painted in many locations throughout the UK and has gained a particular connection with its coastal fringes. Now living in West Cornwall with his family, he has returned to an area that he holds a great ...

Brian Smyth

Brian Smyth is an Irish figurative painter. He was born in Cork and studied art at the Crawford College of Art and Design, where he specialised in painting and graduated with an honours degree in art and design in 1995. (more…)

Jessie Mae Winchester

Jessie Mae Winchester is an Irish artist, born 1982 in West Cork. She is currently based in Kinsale. Jessie Mae received her BA Honours Degree in Fine Art in 2009 at The Crawford College of Art & Design, where she specialised in Sculpture and Life Drawing. After her Degree Show titled, ‘Site 46’, where she received an Award from CIT for ‘Best Exhibition Space’, Jessie Mae became a member of The Pigeon House Studios, Kinsale in 2010 and now is working from her private studio in the Artistic Alliance Gallery, Cork city. She ...

Fergus O’Farrell

Fergus O’Farrell is well known and respected in music parlance for his work with Interference and to the many other artists that have collaborated with him over his long and illustrious career in the music business. He has enjoyed drawing and painting since he was a child. He uses the same strategy to create works in either field. That is to begin with a blank canvas onto which he makes a mark or spoils it and then to continuously improvise until some kind of balanced density is achieved.This can be done equally well improvising chords ...