Author: admin

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Folkart, folklore and folktales are the inspiration for these mixed media works. The initial plate is carborundum. The prints include hand colouring and chine collé (a tissue-thin paper, cut to the size of the printing plate is placed on top of the inked plate and run together with the support paper through the printing press. The process creates a subtle, delicate backdrop to the printed image. Chine is the French word for China, referring to the fact that the thin paper originally used with this technique was imported from China. Collé is the French word for “glued.”). 

Recent work references history, myth and memory. Processes include painting, drawing and mixed media prints which combine drypoint, carborundum, collagraph, monoprinting and chine collé.

Gate Lodge at Merlin Park c1933

My Grandmother Catherine (Kate) Furey (nee Kelly) died on 26th April 1933. She was 27 years old and had six children, my father being the fourth child and aged 3 at the time of her death.

Her death certificate states ‘Late of Gate Lodge, Merlin Park, Galway’ . My father, Paddy, told me that his father (Pat Furey) worked for Mr Waithman in the marble quarry in Merlin Park and the Gate Lodge was opposite the Merlin Bar.

The painting unites the family behind the gates of the Merlin Park estate, near to the imagined Gate Lodge.

During the late ’60’s my family moved to Glenina Heights and my sister and I would take our younger siblings to the castle at Merlin Park Woods where we would climb the spiral staircase and walk around outside on top of the castle walls.

uachtarARTS Group Show – Inspired by Harry Clarke

A Connemara Girl (after Augustus Nicholas Burke and Harry Clarke)

The iconic painting A Connemara Girl and the stained glass work of Harry Clarke are the inspiration for my work for the uachtarARTS Exhibition for Clifden Arts Week, 2024.

A Connemara Girl: Detail from the National Gallery Label:

“Showing a young woman in traditional Connemara attire, this painting might be said to evoke rather than illustrate Augustus Burke’s beloved west of Ireland. While the artist has relied on authentic detail, particularly in the girl’s costume and the terrain, he has made no attempt to disguise the contrived nature of the composition. The central position of the figure, her head and shoulders framed by a heavy shawl, calls to mind devotional Christian imagery.”

The Christian imagery reference prompted me to re-imagine the Connemara Girl in the style of a Harry Clarke stained glass window. I had worked with Harry Clarke’s imagery before during the Curacha Exhibition celebrating Áras Éanna in 2021. It is a pleasure to again study Harry Clarke’s techniques and imagery.

Another detail that interested me is that Augustus Nicholas Burke was a Galway artist.

The National Gallery label states:

It (the Connemara Girl) was probably painted before the artist’s reluctant emigration, prompted by his brother’s murder alongside the Chief Secretary in the Phoenix Park in 1882.

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