Tranquil Pride

Plein air painting, oil on canvas, created during the months of lockdown, in May 2020.

For me, an artist who regularly travels abroad to paint my ‘en plein air’ scenes, lockdown was a rediscovery of my native city, Dublin. Unable to travel in search of beauty, I was forced to find the beauty directly around me. In doing so, I encountered the beauty of Georgian Dublin, a city in lockdown; quiet and calm, gilded in Irish early summer sunshine.
What is important to me is a sense of interaction with the scene I paint. I choose to paint outdoors, rather than from photographs, in order to absorb the energy and history of a place and its people. In this case, I wanted to capture the feeling of community and peace found despite the hardships the city has faced. “When I paint outdoors I capture not only what I see but also the energy of my surroundings. I thought this was a very special time and I wanted to capture that collective energy in as many works as I could.”

This painting is a part of the "Pause For Harmony - Art in Lockdown" collection, which will be exhibited in my Dublin Gallery/Studio from 25th Sept - 25th October 2020.

This painting is a part of the "Pause For Harmony - Art in Lockdown" collection.