BIOGRAPHY

"Painting is a mixture of poetry, gambling and surgery”, Richard Diebenkorn.

 

To make a painting you need a starting point. Mine happens to be in the real world, usually a person, place or living thing.  My training was a traditional figurative one (Wackers Academie, Amsterdam) , but also academic, with a Masters in History of Art (Trinity College, Dublin). My work is inspired by painters past and present, too numerous to list here, and I am constantly brought back to the easel by the complex process of looking, the flexing of the perceptual muscles, and the balancing act required to bring a work to completion.

 

My work has been shortlisted for the Dutch Portrait Prize, accepted into the Dutch Zomerexpo, the Royal Hibernian Academy Summer Exhibition, and hangs in private collections in Europe, the UK, the US, Asia and Africa. In addition I have carried out a number of portrait commissions internationally, exhibit regularly, and taken part in selected international painting festivals.

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I also currently teach drawing and painting at the Wackers Academie in Amsterdam, and have recently started giving workshops in in portrait and still life painting.

 

EDUCATION:

 

Born Dublin, Ireland
 

Diploma Fine Art, Wackers Academie of Fine Art, Amsterdam, 

 

M.A. Text and Image Studies, Trinity College, Dublin & Universite de Paris VII

 

B. A. History of Art and English Literature, Trinity College, Dublin

 

Diploma in Visual Education, Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design, Dublin

 

Lives and works in Amsterdam