1971 - 2007

Seascapes

My earliest seascapes were painted when we returned from London in 1975 during a magical year spent living in a house on the beach in Castletown, Co. Wexford. Its porch, then my studio, looked out to sea and towards Tara Hill, which dominates the skyline to the right. I painted in all-weather facilitated by the rhythms of a new baby. Pushing a pram along the cliff edge my closeness to nature was exhilarating having spent a number of years living in a built-up environment.

 I used gouache, pastel and charcoal as I worked quickly in order to capture the fleeting and changing lights of sun-sets, sun-rises, and the amazing tonal variances of Irish weather- thus started a serious engagement with seascapes, which continued on and off throughout the following years - changing to the use of varied materials and mixed media as time moved on.

Further south down the Wexford coastline was the horizon viewed from my upstairs bedroom window 20 years before I sailed across the Irish Sea on the cattle boats from The North Wall to Liverpool travelling on to Manchester in the early ’60s and, weather permitting out on deck observing the swell and tones of the Irish sea as we moved across it.