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Artist Statement

In response to the LSAD Anew brief, I explored the college’s campus with fresh eyes, focusing on what draws my attention naturally.

I was captivated by both the external and internal environments: the organic forms of nature and landscape, the campus architecture, and especially the mosaic details inside the church.

My concept centers on details—the intricate patterns of tree branches and the fine elements within the mosaic, and again the organic and the inorganic. These observations guided my creative process.

Why is there a fly on my painting?

While we were painting a large mural as a group, a drop of Indian ink accidentally fell onto the wall. I couldn’t remove it, so I turned it into a fly. This funny moment became part of my work - I connected something random with something carefully made. It shows a mix of accident and plan, nature and man-made things. The mosaic is a part of the college. And the fly is too.

I took inspiration from Elizabeth McGill’s trees and colours, Terry Winters’ mosaic textures, and Andy Warhol’s patterns and pop style. I looked closely at their colours and techniques and brought those ideas into my own work.

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Week 6 LSAD 1/05/2025

Final display for the assessment

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My sketchbook for the painting project “LSAD anew”

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Week 6 LSAD 28/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Life drawing with Eoin was a lot of fun and full of experimentation. We worked on long sheets of paper on the floor, layering each newsprint paper. We used materials like charcoal, Indian ink, and acrylic washes, different types of extended brushes and wooden sticks. I tried every material and even challenged myself to draw a portrait, which was something new for me.

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Week 6 LSAD 28/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Life painting with Sylvia

To start our final week, we had a live painting session with a female model. Silvia challenged us to work using only two complementary colours - I chose orange and blue. The model was seated on a bench with a strong light source focused on her back, creating dramatic lighting effects.

I worked with a flat brush, which made fine details difficult. I chose to paint a portrait because I was sitting very close to the model, and the bright light was painful for my eyes. Luckily, the donkey and my painting board blocked part of the model and the light, naturally framing the view—and that’s what led me to focus on the portrait.

It was a challenge to find the lightest tone using just these two colours. I used acrylic wash to keep the lightest areas bright, which created a strong contrast with the darkest tones. I really enjoyed seeing all our paintings hung on the wall together—they looked great as a group.

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Week 6 LSAD 28/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

PowerPoint presentation.

I chose to research Elizabeth Magill because I love her dreamlike sense of landscape. For me her work feels real and imagined at the same time. I’d love to see it in person sometime.

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Week 6 LSAD 28/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

In April 2025, I visited the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin and discovered a painting that truly stayed with me—Aigos Athanasios (2020) by Paul McKinley. (This is one of a group of paintings by McKinley related to the Greek island of Ithaca, the home of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. The scene is the Kefalonia peninsula, which faces Ithaca. The title refers to the site of Odysseus' palace.)

It’s a large-scale canvas, and seeing it in real life was breathtaking. What drew me in were the tiny, intricate details set within such a massive format. The muted, earthy colours, the natural tones, the subtle play of light and shadow—and so much purple. I love purple.

McKinley’s work really inspired me and gave me a sense of what I’m drawn to in painting- details, landscape, light.

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Week 6 LSAD 28/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Over the Easter break, I started working on a landscape inspired by Elizabeth Magill. I used an underpaint layer and kept the oil paint very thin—just enough to let the underpaint show through and create that soft, dreamy feeling.

I also worked on a mosaic piece, where I tried to make the bronze look like real bronze. I wanted to continue my mosaic theme. Not sure if I like it.

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Week 5 LSAD 11/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

On Friday Michael advised me to create a real mosaic and simply play with it. Once again, I turned to Terry Winters and found something in his composition and palette that truly captured my heart.

I painted paper with acrylic, drew lines with charcoal, and cut it into pieces to imitate a real mosaic. Then I started playing: changing backgrounds, assembling and disassembling it again.

At first, I touched it gently - the mosaic looked whole, untouched. But as I kept working, traces began to appear: the smudged charcoal, the shifting lines, the fingerprints left behind. It started to carry the memory of movement, of contact. It brought a sense of life to the work, as if the mosaic began to breathe, not just through form, but through gesture.

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Week 5 LSAD 10/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

The inspiration came from the works of Terry Winters. His palette is alive, almost breathing, became the foundation for the colours in my mosaic. I wanted it to hold something personal, something that truly belonged to the college.

I remembered a moment: while we were working on a large mural as a group, a drop of Indian ink accidentally fell onto a painted section: right at eye level. It couldn’t be removed, and instead of hiding it, I saw an image in it and turned it into a fly. It appeared spontaneously, like a pop art. And now, I’ve “placed” that fly again -this time on the mosaic.

It feels like a conversation - between the organic and the inorganic, between accident and intention. The mosaic is part of the college. And the fly is, too.

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Week 5 LSAD 8/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Went on a drawing trip with the animation students to Fota Wildlife Park and Cobh. The weather was gorgeous! We sketched wild animals, and I had fun focusing on the birds—peacocks, wild geese, all just wandering around us. We walked a lot, then took a little trip into Cobh. I snapped some photos too, planning to draw from them later. Such a lovely day out!

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Week 5 LSAD 7/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Life drawing and painting with Eoin

Today during the life drawing session, I started with quick sketches using charcoal. Then I repeated one of the sketches on thicker paper and continued working with acrylic paints. I managed to capture the body mass and proportions more successfully than before, although I still have some difficulties when it comes to drawing legs.

This time, I was also able to work quite well with color, although in some of the pieces it was challenging to convey the volume of the body. I particularly enjoyed the combination of charcoal and acrylic, this mixed technique complemented my work nicely. The black acrylic outline integrated well into the compositions and emphasized the forms.

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Week 4 LSAD 4/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Artist research

What I love most about Claire Tabouret’s art is her bold use of color and the loose brushstrokes that give her figures such emotional depth and movement.

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Week 4 LSAD 3/04/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Today we explored palette knife painting with Sylvia by creating self-portraits using a mirror, acrylic paint, and a monochrome palette. I chose a round mirror, which added an interesting visual composition and helped frame my face in an interesting way. Working with the palette knife forced me to think more about texture and bold shapes rather than fine detail.

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Week 4 LSAD 31/03/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

On Monday, we had a figure painting session with Sylvia, where we started working from a life model. We mixed tonal paints to experiment with light and shadow, building up form on the paper. This time I felt unsure about how to handle the paint confidently.

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Week 3 LSAD 28/03/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Painting conversations

Michael showed us social media resources like Instagram, YouTube, and podcasts on Spotify to help with our daily painting practice. These resources help us learn more about the art world and understand the context for our Fine Art degree studies.

I continue to work on my mosaic project. Got some ideas from pop art (Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe)

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Week 3 LSAD 27/03/2025. Brief 4 "LSAD anew" Selected discipline - painting

Today we completed our big project - the wall painting. We presented our work and shared some thoughts and comments about the process and the final result. Our idea was to combine sketches and mix each other’s ideas into every element, using techniques or colors inspired by the artists we had studied.

Afternoon we continued working on our individual projects. I felt tired after working on something so large, and I wanted to focus on something smaller. I was encouraged to try working in a smaller format, but with more detailed elements. I decided to create patterns inspired by the mosaics I had seen in a church.