20/09/26

Full day in the studio. Steps in the right direction but what is it …. that’s proving difficult? Flatness of the image? Lack of shadows that help define structure and form? Proportions… angle? It honestly couold be a combination of some of all of the above. Will get there though,

…a joy to work on and is actually fun exploring the canvas and how the image can be pushed / developed further. Complete opposite.

The trick will be having all look effortless despite a cavernous gap in experiences thus far. Does the black/charcoal background come away? Making way for a colour that ties both subjects - say a cooler, muted olive green?

02/08/26

Studio eventually and some strange back and forth with - well - let’s call it ‘Blinding’ for now.

It has promise but it will be the usual high wire act between detail/exactness and loose expressive flow.

Mandy El-Sayegh - Louisiana Channel

“I’m trying to process this reality, because none of it makes sense.”
Mandy El-Sayegh

The Abu Ghraib Effect - intuitive association.

France-Lise McGurn - Louisiana Channel.

03/08/26

Zero power today.

04/08/26

Fleadh in full swing.

05/08/26

Dublin - Brilliant show by Nour Jaouda in Douglas Hyde Gallery - ‘Matter of Time’.

06/08/26

Vault Studios - Bedford Street

Sophia Campbell - Arcade Studios

Cameron Stewart - Arcade Studios

Marta Dyczkowska - Catalyst Arts

Belfast Print Workshop

Late Night Art, Belfast.

07/08/26

“What do you want as a painter?” - a very random question, completely out of the blue on a Friday night.

Had to really think about this…

At it’s centre, my practice is about a physical necessity to process things / experiences that resist plain language or interpretation directly. Everyone carries a personal archive / history of experience. Quiet fragments shift or chang e in atmosphere - half remembered states.

When you try and articulate this shti verbally, it often gets reduced, distorted or blown out of proportion. Painting lets that physical language test that grey zone between recall and memory.

No memory is pristine. It’s full of gaps, erasures and emotional weight or contortions that make or exaggerate. I love how material can mirror that process - specifically the constant dance between the shape and structure of a drawing mark and the fluidity of paint. There can be both a friction and a harmony in putting the two against each other - that really gets me going in the studio.

At the end of the day, I'm not trying to paint a pristine likeness or make pretty pictures. Its trying to work at it and see if that physical buildup of marks can give shape to what sits just beneath the surface of memory.

Sometimes when merging imagery from sources far removed in terms of context, an alternate, fictive narrative or a memory that could have been (or never was) emerges.

09/08/26

‘Blinding’ - good progress on this. Removed the hand, so as to heighten ambiguity… Who or what is causing the shadow?

Happy with the work on differing tomes in the shadow on the face.

10/08/26

Minimal effort - should be fun!

11/08/26

12/08/26

Solar eclipse as seen on the 212.

Tonight - wrapping for Ennistymon.

13/08/26

16/08/26

Work lifted and off to first solo show in Republic. It's happening!

20/08/26

Long trek to Ennistymon. Nice to see poster for show in a shop in town before I set foot there.

21/08/26

Long morning of installing and drawing on walls but all in all - I'm proud of the work and pleased with how the exhibition has turned out.

30/08/26

‘A Brush with… Dawoud Bey'.

…Subjective opticality.

‘Blinding’ finished with very minor tweaks, commission started and metro 7b piece back and forth this afternoon before emergency car washing in the rain.

03/09/26

Late Night Art Belfast.

06/09/26

‘A Brush with Richard Tuttle’.

In the studio and working on commissions - good progress on both.

10/09/26

Dublin bound in prep for Get Together 2026!

11/09/26

TUD Grangegorman - a great day all round.

12/09/26

Got to car and a wallet fell from underneath the wing mirror - good deed done.

17/09/26

…hanging together…

20/09/26