Tag Archives: Island

big ones

I thought I would bring together some of my large works from the last few years, here in a post, and remind myself where they are now.

All these paintings are between 150 and 300cm long and up to 140cm deep. All were made on unstretched linen, stamped to my studio wall, then stretched afterwards, either here or at their destination after they were sold

This is ‘Tower’ just under 3m long. It was a huge challenge getting it out to its new home, by boat, onto a little island off Donegal

This is ‘Voyage’, about 100x190cm, shown at Mark Borghi Fine Art in New York, and placed with a client over there

Me with ‘Lugh’s Portal’ on the opening night of my show at MBFA last year. The painting is still there in their inventory

This is ‘Due West’ in my solo show of the same name two years ago at GreenFuse gallery in Westport. It’s home again now

Island Life

This enormous painting continues to challenge me

It is 150cm x 240cm on primed canvas currently stapled to the wooden wall of my studio

The main debate with myself is about the horizon line. I am gradually settling to a decision to keep the horizon visible only on the left. On the right the orientation of the landscape becomes ambiguous.

Today I added a pink layer over the darker tones on the top right section and also some ochre areas. And then applied solvent and made some deep marks with a palette knife to reveal the dark blue underneath

island life

It started like this, a huge piece of primed canvas (160 x 258cm, the end of the roll), stapled to the floor.

It took up so much of the floor that I had to stand on it to get round it



After a while working on it on the floor, I got Malachy to help me hang it sideways on the wall

And then I turned it round the right way

I taped off the edges, built up more layers and thought it was done.

But something was unbalanced

So finally I took the plunge


There she blows!

Here’s a closeup 


And here’s a photo montage


A good day!

Holey walls, wells and orange bog grass

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Another walk along the west across the middle and back along the eastern in land facing shore.
A chat on the way, through the hedge, with Neill and Annie clearing their potato patch and Steven digging for razor clams in the low tide sand.
Passed ‘my’ well again. And a quick visit with my neigh our.
Home now with a cup of tea by the range