The Irish artist is inspired by Ireland’s wild rugged coastlines and emotional landscapes …
There is a particular kind of silence in Ireland. One that belongs to this place alone. It isn’t the absence of sound. Have you ever noticed the quiet hush that settles after rain has passed over the bog? It’s almost as though the land is actually breathing. The moments before the next wave hits the shore and retreats in that ever-revolving loop. The stillness of an early morning when the sea is calm, the air is fresh and the sky mirrors the land as the horizon fades off into the distance. Perhaps that’s why I’ve spent more than 20 years trying to understand this relationship with the land.
People often ask me where I get my inspiration. I’ve stood on the same stretch of coast dozens of times and not once has it greeted me in quite the same way. The truth is that I’m surrounded by inspiration all of the time. It arrives in bursts, found in the shifting light after a storm, the rhythm of waves crashing against the rocks, the quiet before dusk, the deep purples of distant mountains or the brief moment when sunrise turns wet stone to gold. I mostly look to the endless moods of sky and sea – furious, calming, humbling and all consuming. I photograph them in my mind and those moments stay with me long after I leave the scene.
I remember one time, standing on the shoreline of the west coast of Ireland, on a dusky evening after heavy rain. The sky had begun to clear and the rocks glistened in the last light of the day. I never painted that exact scene, yet years later I realised that it had quietly found its way into dozens of my paintings. When I return to my studio, I recall the experience. I paint the feelings that lingered with the weight of the weather, the rhythmic pull of the tide, the play of light on the land. That’s why I often say that I paint what’s felt rather than seen. For many years, I thought that was simply my way of working. More recently, I’ve begun to wonder if it’s something more deeply inherent in me and the Irish relationship with the landscape. It’s woven into who we are as a people – our folklore, poetry, music and sense of identity. Perhaps that’s why I find myself returning to the same places over and over again. Each time I revisit, it’s a whole new experience.
Light transforms familiar ground into somewhere entirely new, passing all kinds of intricacies through the shadows. A coastline that felt open and welcoming in summer can become solemn, mysterious and almost intimidating in winter. The land is alive because it’s always changing.
As artists, we’re told that we must find our style in how we paint. I think I found mine by paying attention to the land – listening to it. The way mist softens the edges of distant hills like a ghost on the landscape; the silence that follows rain and the air bounces with a new vitality; the colours hidden within dark clouds; the labyrinth of moving cloud that commands attention; and the feeling of standing before something far older and greater than ourselves. It’s those lingering moments that have become the true subject of my work.
People sometimes describe my paintings as peaceful and I’m always grateful to receive feedback. Yet, peace is not something that I consciously paint. I often carry a camera, but the photographs that matter most are the ones I never take. A painting begins with what the landscape leaves behind. When we reconnect through a painting, we’re reminded of the beauty of nature to take notice, slow down and breathe. I don’t just paint Ireland because I live here. I paint it because, like so many of us, I carry it within me. donnamcgee.ie
SEE MORE: Artistic License – Christian Tierney
