Artist Statement  2021

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My practice as a painter is informed by an ongoing  dialogue with abstraction in painting.             Recently I have a renewed interest in the expressive potential of drawing, gestural line and automatic writing, and their relevance to my artistic practice. 

The visual potential of landscape and its referents, engaged for painterly, expressive, formal, informal properties, have invariably been significant aspects of my painting.                                           

Having returned to work and live in the west of Ireland I now find the elemental nature of the region is becoming a primary source of inspiration and point of departure in my work.                 Integrating process based painting with abstract concerns presents intriguing possibilities to me.                  

Expressing the elemental,  the tactile, mood or metaphor through process, gesture and line is the intention. To engage with the both history and the contemporary in painting, timeless yet of its time, expressive, contemplative and lyrical, are ongoing narratives in my visual practice.                      

These developments present potentially new directions and visual terrain to navigate, providing further motivation.

Visual poetics. enquiry. meta language and chance continue to be the armatures and inspiration through which my painting evolves.