“Since last September I have been working towards my upcoming solo show at the Olivier Cornet Gallery – a series of still lives with phantom-like shadows cast by the use of two angle-poise lights. However, for the last few months, like everyone else, I have been preoccupied by the war in Ukraine, and have been checking the news 20 times a day. When Russian forces invaded and Putin began his ultra-violent smash up in Ukraine, I felt compelled to turn my attention to the war. I just couldn’t sit and paint still life anymore. It felt wrong – I had to paint the war, to show the horror of it, the inhumanity of it.

Every day since the war began, I’ve chosen an image, mostly from the BBC website, or something similar, and painted it. I began painting satellite images of troops amassed on the Ukraine border and since then, I’ve made about 20 paintings of moments that are unfolding in Ukraine. I hope that these paintings will open people’s eyes to the reality in Ukraine in fresh ways. I want people to be able to experience the war through paint. Francis Bacon said he hoped his art could “deepen the game” and I share his hope. I want to bring the reality of the war to people in a way it hasn’t been done before. Saturated, jaded by online media, I wanted to make paintings of the images we all see and know, and too quickly forget. Images that would resonate deeper by virtue of them being reimagined and abstracted in paint.

Dasein was Heidegger’s word for “being there” or the experience of being that is particular to humans. In my paintings for this exhibition I hope to take people into the icy convoys sliding off the snowy highway, up the road with the fleeing families lugging their suitcases, and into a group of hitchhikers hoping to get a lift. To make these experiences real in paint.

I usually work in a big beautiful north-lit studio in my home, but because of some renovations I’ve actually been working in a tiny two-bed bedroom above it – it was the only room with north light that was available. I work from low res images on my iPad, as I am only loosely basing my paintings on the photos, they’re not copies as such, more like transcriptions.

I don’t make any preliminary sketches, but I do draw onto the canvas with thin cadmium scarlet. I also like working over old paintings I’ve made and many of these have other paintings beneath them! Usually, I paint with Windsor and Newton oils and whatever lead white I can buy. For this series I wanted to use something different to express the bleakness of the situation. I got some very fine sand from the owner of Athy foundry, and mixed it with a cold wax medium called Zest It, and another medium called Velasquez medium which is limestone-based. To that mound of matter, I added my colours.

The piles of paint I used were the size of golf balls, and very gritty because of the sand. It all crunched under my palette knives. It felt right when painting a convoy or a bombed maternity hospital to be using such rough material. The skies I created look like they have been painted with cement. The images are hewn from a slimy grit and the brushes and palette knives have been wearing down faster than usual. The experience is about the presence of things, a broken and bald world. I didn’t plan this. It just seemed the natural course to take for the situation. Gritty as hell!

I knew this wasn’t going to be a commercial subject matter. That said, 20 per cent of all sales are going to the Irish Red Cross to help support the Ukrainian people who come to Ireland. I couldn’t have it any other way. The paintings must support people if they can. There is so much suffering its almost too tragic to imagine.”

Need to know: “War Paint” by Conrad Frankel opens at Olivier Cornet Gallery at 3 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1, on April 10 from 2pm – 6pm when Conrad will be present. The exhibition runs until May 1; www.oliviercornetgallery.com.