What do you do once you get out of Art College?
I’m still trying to figure that out. At the start, you have a lot of energy, and after I finished at the Belfast School of Art there were quite a few things which happened. Firstly me, and my partner, Sophia, were resident artists at the School of Art as part of a scheme which aimed to help you transition from being in education to looking to work as an artist.
Now that was all cut short because of Covid, so we did an exhibition, a three person show called “When it rains it pours” with our very talented friend, Paddy McKeown, who was a musician as well as an artist and sculptor. That was our first exhibition beyond the confines of the School of Art.
Was Arcade Gallery set up around that time as well?
Sophia and I, along with a few friends, founded Arcade Gallery. Everyone had a very close connection to the School of Art and it felt like we were maintaining the camaraderie of that experience and I suppose the energy that was there as well. And Arcade Gallery is situated just a few hundred yards away from the school of art so again, we keep that connection which seems quite important.
You now work as a professional artist. How did that come about?
I managed a coffee shop in Holywood, and my degree show painting was far too big to display anywhere so I put it up in the coffee shop. I met this man who was setting up a business where he would decorate working spaces in the United States and he asked me to work for him. It all came about by chance.
And you paint for this person?
Doing this work where you are making paintings to order, it’s a different dynamic to working on your own paintings, although I would say that you do want to try and put your own ideas into the work. You are painting to a particular design, but you are still making paintings. These works are actually more decorative that anything else. I tend to think they are more like ornaments than works of art.
Regardless of that, I think the aim is to make good paintings within the brief of making work which has to be displayed in a certain space in a certain way.
What about producing your own work?
One of the good things about doing the professional work is that your hands are always moving. You are always painting so you are always making decisions, tossing out ideas, thinking about themes. That is really useful when it comes to working on your own material.
What themes do you investigate in your own paintings?
It is often down to moments of inspiration, does something inspire me to construct an image. I do a lot of running and I find the process of your mind drifting to all sorts of places while you are running, how you absorb aspects of your surroundings during a run, helps to create images that I might work on later.
I think I am most influenced by our landscape as well as other landscapes, like those in western films. I know Cave Hill appears in my paintings but it doesn’t look like the real Cave Hill, it isn’t just a representation.
You mix your own paints?
I have been using pigments combined with rabbit skin glue, I’s called Distemper and I think it gives paintings the feel of being old, like oil paintings.
I know painting is really just distributing mud around stretched cotton, but I just the texture, the colours and the result this method offers.
