Artist Statement:
Some thoughts on a painting,
March, 2006.

Most days spent in the studio are fruitless and so, some days spent running away from the studio are allowed. I can easily convince myself of the importance of going out and "looking", as opposed to staying in and working.

Sitting in the studio now looking at a painting I am reminded of a day spent avoiding work. In a shop that seemed to sell everything I bought some plasticine and pipe cleaners, one of many selfish acts ( my money should really be "our" money ) but on days when I am an artist, as opposed to a teacher, spending money on a whim is ok.

The plasticine was bought because of my current inclination to see most things in terms of a 3 dimensional model, at the time I had a particular landscape in mind. The models I build function as a stage between a real experience of the world and a painting. The activity of constructing the models is self indulgent but hugely comforting. They are more about making than thinking.

What seems important to me now is that the models are not the work. The work itself needs to go beyond comfort. The single difficulty I feel most aware of as an artist is balancing what is indulgent with what is important.

The landscape in question is a particular view in Kerry which I know well and so, it's a view that I never really look at anymore. Instead, I look through it and think. That view has become a concept for me and, over time, I've brought other thoughts and associations to it, ideas about Romanticism, Paul Henry and Chinese Landscape Painting. So, making a picture of that Landscape based only on its visual appearance is of no interest to me.

Looking at the finished painting on my studio wall now I can remember my sense of unease when I finished it. It became a finished painting by surviving on the wall for a while without my destroying it. The painting surprised me because it didn't look like my work at all. I felt that I had arrived at that position by concentrating on the thoughts and associations which, for me, had become more important than the landscape itself.

The painting reminds me of the process of looking and how that process is more than just optical perception. We "see" the world by relating to it, and for me, building models and painting is part of that process.