Artist Retreat, Kerry, Ireland.

The thinnest of places.

Whether or not we as humans choose to engage on the process of ‘creating’ through art or any creative discipline, some places and landscapes can hold a ‘charge’; a real and potent presence in our mind that intentional or not, lingers long after we have physically left such places.

And if we choose to ‘tune in’ to those places or not, I believe that some landscapes ‘hold their energy’ more than others. The notion of ‘thin places’ – described initially by ancient pagan celts as places where the thinnest of veils separates this world from another is often referenced across cultures. But I suspect that the notion of a ‘thin’ place is just as much a product of the ‘charge’ that somewhere holds for the observer than of the latent energy that a place itself can arguably project.

As a child, I was taken to Ireland regularly – to visit Irish family and to holiday. Touring the land and observing the landscape left its mark in a way that is deep rooted, persistent, and meaningful and certain places within Ireland persisted, becoming ‘charged’ places in my psyche. The ‘irish’ connection endured both in and as part of our continued family’s identity strengthening that magnetic pull.

Now and as a practicing artist, I had long been driven to go back to Ireland to explore how the prism of adulthood, knowledge and a life lived might have changed or influenced that connection. Furthermore, I wanted to explore how I could understand this potential revision through my practice. The drive to investigate grew and a timely Artist Residency in a remote part of Southern Ireland provided the opportunity to begin that process.  

My Practice and Approach

The opportunity aligned perfectly with the current trajectory that my work was – and is following.

I’ve always been interested not simply ‘capturing’ but ‘responding’; to bring my own sensibilities into the creative process.; to invite the viewer into the hearty, meaty, fleshy, turbulent pulse of my paintings, created without sentiment or affectation but with integrity and being of substance. This purposeful retreat provided the space to extend and develop my practice with this aim in mind

The Kerry Paintings.

And so, the paintings that emerged from this visit are not literal. That was not my intent. They carry my reactions, memories, and experience of that place.  Responses fuelled by a more informed adult understanding of the significance of a turbulent history of the presence and movement of peoples (forced and unforced) through time on a beautiful, powerful landscape.

In spending focused time in those places the ‘charge’ was still there but I found the weight of history rested heavily. Although of low visible human population, I still felt and experienced a powerful energy of place.

I had found the ‘thinnest’ of thin places.  

The Art Critic Christopher Neve has commented that ‘some works of art have a way of taking you directly to the very heart of what concerns them, as though you have missed the beginning and anyway, have no need of it’. He references this in the context of David Boombergs paintings whom he argues his paintings in full flight does this very thing.

In this pursuit, I would argue that this is what good art does.

This was – and continues to be my intent. I hope I succeeded.

I will go back.