Friday September 20th 4 - 7pm
No booking required
Join us at the reception launch of a captivating new exhibition by Elaine Quinlan. Elaine works from her studio overlooking the wild Atlantic way in rural Galway and also has strong roots in the Ivereagh peninsula in Kerry where she works during the summer months. The artist is based in an area known for its marshy lowlands, rocky limestone fields and turloughs. These turloughs or vanishing lakes are the inspiration for her work, which lies somewhere between abstraction and representation. Pools, reflections, straggly grasses and mossy lichens are regular motifs in her paintings. Working in oils and acrylics, Elaine builds up layers of paint with lots of glazing and delicate mark-making to create colourful, ethereal paintings on wood panels and canvas. The artist states:
It’s impossible not to be inspired by the Irish landscape. It has a special feel, a particular kind of light, a constantly changing sky. I’m hugely influenced by my watery surroundings. I live in an area of Galway in the West of Ireland close to what’s known as a Turlough or a vanishing lake. It frequently floods the land, so the landscape changes constantly. I like to track the changes, the colours and textures that appear during the seasons. I like to paint not so much the landscape itself, as how it feels to live here. I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed being out in the landscape – there is so much to see. So once back in my studio I like to focus on the small details I’ve noticed – the sky reflected in puddles of rain, mist over hanging flooded fields, reeds floating on the vanishing lake. In the summer months, my paintings are inspired by the sea, rock-pools, shoreline and colour of the Kerry landscape.
My paintings are intuitive rather than formally planned. I like to work on different surfaces including canvas, wood and paper. I paint with a variety of materials and tools, building up layers of paint and glazing to create depth and translucency. I love process. I love starting a painting with no formal plan. I like to use delicate lines, expressive mark-making, ambiguity, layers of colour and drawing to indicate elements hiding behind each other. I like the unexpected to emerge and then as the work develops, bring formal elements into the painting so what I’m left with is a sense of landscape but in a balanced yet fluid abstract composition.
Come celebrate Culture Night with us, meet the artist and immerse yourself in the ethereal beauty of Elaine Quinlan’s art! Should you wish to support this artist and invest in any of Elaines work, we’re happy to take a deposit & the remainder can be paid off over a number of weeks. We’re grateful for the support of Leitrim Arts Office for this exhibition.
