I am a Cork-based artist whose work combines aspects of figuration and abstraction and is created using predominately oil and acrylic paint. I also utilise digital photo editing processes to create the references for my paintings. Within my work, I seek to explore ideas relating to image perception and deconstruction. To do this, I crop and digitally edit images, gathered from my family archive, to create vivid, highly saturated references. Within my practice, it is integral that these images are then translated into paintings. The physicality intrinsic to painting contrasts the immediacy of the digital editing process. Through this combination, I am able to further deconstruct the image. I am also deeply interested in the relationship between the viewer, the image and myself. As the references for my paintings are from my family archive, it is inherent that the work is somewhat rooted in lineage and family. However, by disrupting the colour palette of the original image, or cropping the figure out of the painting entirely, I am working to detach the image from its original context and find new meaning as a result of this process. In doing so, these historical images are brought into the contemporary.
