In 2017 I was selected out of several thousand applicants to the BBC’s Big Painting Challenge. and I made it through to the semi final.
Artistically it was a perception altering experience.
My current work celebrates the local landscape across the Mournes and down to the shores of Carlingford Lough. It gave me the inspiration to carry on throughout a serious illness and then the loss of my husband
So far I have worked in oils or watercolours, characterised often by impasto ( very thickly applied to the canvas) and an individual sense of colour. As a self -taught artist I did not know oil could be thinned and besides I found the texture adds a dimension of interest. Alternatively my paint work can be delicate and unfinished looking ( just like life and death) it depends on the mood, or the day or the landscape I find myself in.
From 2018 onwards I have used my artistic skills to promote the preservation of the unique and historic landscape of ancient Oak woods and Lough shore in Rostrevor through collaborative artistic and music projects, by engaging, leading, and creating with local community and environmentally concerned direct action groups and with artistic individuals. At the an early event, A Rare Night to Remember I devised and designed a participative art work using oak gall ink made by myself and Colum Sands from oak galls collected from the ancient oak forest on the side of Slieve Martin, which was in danger of damage from over-development. Using goose quills, which I cut, all participants were invited to sign in oak gall ink with a quill, to endorse our collective will to protect the environment. The work, I Sign My Name Here, was produced on fabriano paper creating an historic artistic petition becoming a catalyst in a number of direct actions to highlight the need to protect our environmental heritage in Rostrevor. The artwork focused attention on one particular mature oak tree close to the boundary of a proposed development at the base of the ancient oak wood in Rostrevor. The tree was overlooked during a tree survey for the developers, raising serious questions as to why this happened . The became known as the ‘Invisible Tree’
The work, I Sign My Name Here became instrumental in drawing attention for the need to protect our environmental heritage in Rostrevor
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