For as long as I can remember I wanted to paint and to draw..... as a kid I was always making stuff and experimenting with bits and peices of whatever was to hand. My mum was always doing crafts in the garage which she sold at markets; christmas logs, wreaths, dried flower arrangements ....and we got to help, so I suppose its in my bones!
Then I grew up, worked, travelled, had three lovely kids, had lots of fun, enjoyed life...... and started to paint and make again with the children.
I now have a studio beside my home in a beautiful seaside town on the east coast of Ireland and I paint as often as I can.
I went to Art College when my children were in school and
I had my first solo exhibition in 2006 just after I graduated and my second solo exhibition in December 2016.
In the ten years between the two big shows I exhibited all over Ireland and a bit in the UK, including the RHA Annual Exhibition, The Lab in Foley Street, The DLR Lexicon, Fringe Arts Bath Festival, UK, The Talbot Gallery, Adams Contemporary & Fine Art Auction, Green Acres Gallery in Wexford, The Dun Laoghiare Art Gallery Co. Dublin, Fitzpatricks Castle Hotel, Killiney, Dalkey Arts Gallery in Co Dublin, The Tramyard Gallery in Dalkey, Co Dublin, The Blue Loft Gallery, Ranelagh, Dublin 4, and Airfield House, Kilmacud, among others.
In the winter of 2015/16 I was lucky to be selected on the DLR writer in residence programme where a group of us worked with writer Selina Guinness to make new stories and it was fascinating, it helped focus my painting as well because a lot of my painting is about memory, the memory of an event or a conversation, a happy place and maybe a time when we were more carefree, the little things that form our lives and our friends and families. Sometimes remembering the carefree summer days helps remind us that they will come back again soon!! I use lots of colour in my paintings and hope you can feel the mood and become engrossed in the painting.
The drawings I make are always changing but they relate to whatever painting I am doing, they go hand in hand. And they look fab framed in chunky black frames.
Over the ten + years since graduating, as well as exhibiting my paintings and drawings, I have been involved in lots of public projects which include Commissions, Workshops, setting up studios, an Art Market in Dalkey, Set Design for my kids schools (even after they left the school), administrating the Dun Laoghaire Art Gallery at Brian S Nolan Limited, in Georges Street Dun Laoghaire which was a great space for artists and exhibitions, events, talks and DLR Artist Network meetings, this closed in January 2017 so I am off to find some new adventures.
