From the Bog Road to the Sea

I grew up on the Bog Road in County Limerick, where being outdoors was simply part of life. We walked down the bog and into the fields, collecting sticks and playing with mud and clay. That was how we filled our days.

Years later, I moved to Galway and found the sea.

The Atlantic brought a different kind of freedom. Sea swimming became very important to me. The cold water, the movement of the waves and the warmth returning to my skin afterwards. It gave me a feeling of being completely present and, in time, helped bring me back to painting.

I don’t usually begin a painting with a fixed image in mind. I begin with colour and feeling. One mark leads to another, and the painting slowly gathers through layers of acrylic, brushwork and palette knife. Sometimes the land appears. Sometimes it is the sea, a changing sky or the softness of wildflowers. Often, it is a mixture of memory and something felt in the moment.

There is a line I often return to: from the Bog Road to the sea and back to the bog again.

Now, living among the bogland of County Galway, I can see how these places are connected in my work. The Bog Road was the beginning. The Atlantic brought me back to painting. Both have shaped how I see colour, movement and the landscape around me.

My paintings are not intended to describe these places exactly. They are about how it feels to be in them. The freedom, the memory, the cold water, the warmth on the skin and the sense of being alive.

Feeling through land and sea.