Category: Artist Archives

Before 2000 I touched on graphic design & animation, studied painting, and found myself working for a fantastic Dublin theatre company called Bedrock under director Jimmy Fay.

At this point I realised I wanted to learn more about theatre. I was extremely lucky to secure a place in the renowned Motley Theatre Design Course, London. It was there, taught by legends of the stage, that I was initiated into the wisdom of process. Process can be likened to a map. A map gives us options for getting from A to B. Process gives us method. The choices we make, the mistakes we learn from, and the chance meetings we dare to explore create the wonders of our individual existences.

After the Motley course, I returned to Ireland and worked successfully as a theatre designer. I branched out into the film world. My life & work were beginning to take shape. Alas nothing lasts forever, change is always. In 2000 the unreversible happened… I nearly died. Strangely, this dark time became invaluable. It made me stand back, take stock and re-evaluate my life, allowing me to revisit forgotten childhood dreams.

Serendipitously in 2001 I met Budley, Gabby and Bishop. The child within awoke as our journey to new awareness and a new life began…. on the road to Nearly There.

JohannaConnor.com

Growing up in the 1950’s in San Diego, California, painter John David Ratajkowski remembers “being able to draw anything I could see.”  Fascinated as a boy by all variety of materials, Ratajkowski was early on adept at painting, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, lithography.  He recalls that the key attraction for him in every case was the compelling desire “to make”—whatever the media.  His exceptional drawing ability found expression in a series of pen and ink drawing of Black American blues musicians published as illustrations in a seminal work on American blues.  

Early on, though, Ratajkowski knew his “true love” was painting.  Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, an exhibition of remarkable large black and white portraits of Alzheimer’s patients testifies to Ratajkowski’s capacity to render the figure realistically, even as his interpretation of his subjects demonstrates the unique power of his vision.

Ratajkowski’s abstract work took him to Ireland for a two-year sabbatical to work at non-figurative landscape; this work resulted in two major exhibitions in Dublin.  He was invited later to be resident artist at “Dom Polonia”, a national arts council in Poland, and then to Bulgaria to exhibit in that country’s Triennial.  During this time Ratajkowski traveled through Eastern Europe photographing and sketching Gypsy communities and producing a series of painted collages of Gypsy life.  The exhibition of this series was sponsored by the Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies and presented through a grant from the California Council for the Humanities.

Ratajkowski’s experiments in abstract work have powerfully impacted his portraiture.  A series of portraits of Jewish literary figures depicted in film combined Ratajkowski’s abstract painting techniques with his long-time work in the portrait.  

Key to Ratajkowski’s work is travel without which he explains he would become numb to his surroundings.  The need to absorb the influences of different places paired with his fascination with material and technique manifests itself in all aspects of Ratajkowski’s life: for the last three decades he has restored two old houses, one in the pueblo of Sant Joan, Mallorca, and the other in Bantry, County Cork, Ireland.  

Exhibited in the US and internationally, Ratajkowski’s work appears in private and corporate collections; he is represented by the Blue Leaf Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, and the CJ Gallery in San Diego, California.  Today Ratajkowski, with his wife and daughter, divides his time between their home in Del Mar, California, and the two farmhouses in Ireland and Mallorca.

John Jermyn lives on the edge of the cliff at Fennell’s Bay, Crosshaven in County Cork, Ireland. This proximity to nature has nurtured in him a fascination with landscape – the power, atmosphere, and mood that the seas, waterways and coastlines inspirit and generate.

His paintings explore different aspects in contrasting settings varying from tranquil shorelines or a still canal to raging high seas, initially allowing a glimpse of its subject but then encouraging the viewer into something else, something bigger.

Over the years, he has gained a deep understanding of the Irish landscape, its people and its past. This understanding has created a highly individual painter who is held in high regard by those who are familiar with his work, which is becoming increasingly well known.

John’s proximity to nature’s elements provides him with the purest form of inspiration. John holds regular painting classes at The Framemaker in Carrigaline, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. The classes are suitable for all, from absolute beginner to the more experienced artist, using acrylic, oil and watercolour mediums. These small group painting sessions are relaxed yet gently challenging and it is hoped that one leaves with a feeling of satisfaction and a sense of achievement. One to one painting sessions are also available.

John also holds painting classes in Cork at The Sacred Heart Centre, Western Road on Mondays, morning and afternoon sessions.

For more information, contact John at
Mobile: 087 8265965
Email: johnjermyn123@gmail.com
Web: www.johnjermyn.com

June spent two years studying textiles in Winchester College of Art and Design before marrying and becoming a mother. In the early sixties she moved to Dublin and was working as a dress designer/maker for a small upmarket boutique in Ann Street and also for a few musicals at the Olympia Theatre, when she had an exhibition at the Ritchie Hendricks Gallery in Molesworth Street.

In 1964 she moved back to England where she studied at Sussex University and obtained a B.Ed. Hons in teaching Art and Design. For twenty years she taught in a large Brighton comprehensive eventually becoming a head of a faculty covering Art, Drama, Music and Home Economics!

When her Irish husband took early retirement from the sound broadcasting business they moved back to live in West Kerry Gaeltacht.

The inspiring surroundings and the Celtic Tiger enabled her eventually to open her own gallery – Dingle Artworks which is run as a small co-operative and looked after by her daughter Louise McIntyre, who is an artist working in Papier Maché.

June now paints almost exclusively in expressions of her immediate surroundings and besides her innovative silk paintings and batiks she produces many oils, watercolours and botanical flower paintings.

2015

I have lived in Ireland since 1989. I was a nurse in London but am now following a life-time ambition to become a professional artist.

I work from The Bootshed Art Studio just outside of Skibbereen and it is here that I give one to one sessions for those on the autistic spectrum.

At the moment I am enjoying watercolours and ink on paper.

I love the unpredictable flow of the paint and the subtle shades. The ink serves to define and control and intensifies the patterns with which I am somewhat obsessed.

I’m influenced by ancient Persian art and Russian Icons liking their simplicity and yet the depth of expression they evoke. I paint from my imagination telling myself the story as I work. There usually an image of a women in hiatus, waiting dreaming, wandering or reassessing.

Lar Maguire was born in Dublin in 1953 and moved to Abbeylara, County Longford in 2003 where he has lived since. Becoming unemployed in 2012, Lar found himself with time on his hands and decided to return to art. Having been active in mostly oils, pencil and pastels some 16 years earlier, he decided he needed a challenge and decided to try a new medium and settled on watercolour.

With this in mind he concentrated on works reflecting his environment and held his first exhibition in Granard in March 2014. It turned out to be very successful, selling 17 out of 20 pieces. Since then he has had many commissions and recently exhibited in the Longford Cruthu exhibition and featured on Longfords television programme, ‘Longford Matters’.

After such a long time away from painting, Lar finds it both exhilarating and frustrating in that watercolours, whilst a beautiful medium, can be very unforgiving. He is presently teaching watercolour classes in Granard and finds it very rewarding artistically.

Lar on Facebook

Patrick studied at the NCAD, moving to West Cork in 1971 to set up a sculpture studio. He was a visiting lecturer at the NCAD, the Crawford College and Limerick regional college from 1976 – 1986. From 1988 – 1992 he lived in New York where he began a series of clay figures at the Mugi Studio. His work can be seen in several public collections including the Arts Council of Ireland, the Crawford Municipal Gallery, and the National Museum of Ireland. Pat has represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale 1980 and in Japan. Pat Connor’s work stems from a firm intellectual understanding of the process of making ceramics.

Returning to Ireland in 1993 he continues to work from his studio in Schull. The figure predominates in Connor’s sculpture, whether human or animal. He combines the techniques of throwing, pressing and modelling. For him the essence of the artist’s odyssey is both the medium and the message it conveys.

“I love the richness, feeling of stillness, suspension and possibility in icons, thangkas and medieval European art, and hope to express a similar feeling of a thoughtful, timeless moment in my paintings.”

Blue House Gallery, Schull 2015
Haugaard Gallery, Ballydehob 2014
Bridge Gallery, Dublin 2001-07

Past exhibitions include I.O.N.T.A.S.Sligo, West Cork Arts Centre, R.H.A.Dublin.

Born in 1972, Sara was brought up in Devon, living for many years in the market town of Newton Abbot where her love of racing began. She went on a year long Art Foundation course at South Devon College but chose to study history at Plymouth University and completed a Masters Degree in Irish Studies at Bath College. In 1996 she moved to West Cork in Ireland where her mother’s family originate from and where she spent family holidays as a child.

She is Ireland’s top female equestrian artist and her work is commissioned worldwide. Working in oils and watercolour she is best known for her contemporary equine art and local Irish landscape paintings.

Sara’s work is in private and corporate collections. She has exhibited in Ireland and the U.K. in solo and group exhibitions and has work in many private collections. She is a member of the West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen and a Full Member of the Society of Equestrian Artists in the U.K. She also supports The Emile Faurie Foundation and the Injured Jockeys Fund through her work.

http://www.sarahodson.com/

Moving to Ireland in 1980 was the result of an increasing desire for a decisive change in both lifestyle and environment and West Cork had re-awakened happy childhood memories of life in a rural society and landscape.

I arrived with no real plans other than to paint.

I’m lucky to have a good visual memory and work mainly from this. Colour is probably more important than form in my work because of its emotional impact. I have some problems with the concept of “inspiration” and find success usually comes with time and patience though its always exciting when a painting just happens. Often when I look at pictures I did years before they take me by surprise and I wonder how they arrived.

Sometimes frustrating and sometimes magical, painting for me is simply what I do.

Terry has work in private collections throughout Europe, U.S.A. Saudi Arabia and Australia. Corporate collections include B.A.S.F. Germany, I.B.E.C. and the Office of Public Works Dublin.