I was born in Sneem, Co Kerry (South West Ireland) in 1956, but spent most of my childhood and formative years in the Killarney area. While interested in drawing and painting from early childhood, I really only began to have some commercial success in the 1980’s. Around that time, I focused mainly on landscapes of the rugged coastline of Co Kerry and other West of Ireland scenes. In the 1980s and 1990s, I exhibited in galleries such as Kenny’s (Galway), the Frank Lewis Gallery (Killarney) and the Oisin Gallery (Dublin).
I moved to Wexford in 1999 and, around that time, developed an interest in working outdoors or "en plein air". There followed some intensive workshops in Fair Oaks, California with plein-air artist Susan Sarback and shortly afterwards, I quit my job to concentrate on painting and have worked as a full-time artist since 2007.
While I have diversified into portrait and figurative work, my main interest is still very much grounded in nature. The main characteristics of my work are:-
- immediate impact, because of a strong sense of visual reality,
- clear sense of authentic light, whether direct (sunny) or diffuse (cloudy),
- strong sense of feeling and emotion, because when painting, especially en plein air, all of one's senses are involved and
- a strong sense of visual focus because of varied brushwork and handling (I try to lead the viewer's eye to where I want it to go and to what attracted me to the scene in the first place).
Since childhood, I have had a deep connection with nature and am still drawn to wild, remote places. But, increasingly, I find myself being drawn to the challenge of finding beauty in everyday subject matter. For me, the fascination is always how sunlight can change the underlying hue, or "local colour" of whatever it shines on. So to some extent, I think I'm trying to paint light rather than objects.