Delighted to say I have just SOLD a Giclee print of this painting “Inner Light ” via Artfinder – also now on it’s way to the USA!
“This is another refractionist painting and is almost an inverse of “Up Cwmdonkin”. Instead of the refracted light creating a stain glass effect falling on the outside fringes of a wood, here it illuminates within the hidden chamber of a forest, which gives it a heightened, magical or enchanted feel. It feels like a secret wood of childhood fantasy and imagination. I like how the brillant rainbow colours contrast with the jet black and how the inner sanctum of light is framed naturally by the surrounding trees, inviting one into the shower of light and colour. But is this scene too good to be true? Is there a Brothers Grimm malevolence here, in this painting? Do the black trees signal a menace, a foreboding or do these encircling trees call one into a place of wonder and a child-like joy, where the light and colour, silence and peace rain down and let the soul rejoice? Or is it a broody chimera? Depends on your own imagination I suppose?”
See the original work by clicking here on Artfinder
This abstracted landscape or ‘refractionist’ work sees the light broken down into light filled colour segments or ‘blocks’ to create an almost pre-perceptual image. The foreground dark reds are juxtaposed against the light-singed orange and lushy leafy greens to suggest a green distant solace from the scorching heat, with the darker blues suggesting a progressively deepened experience of this respite and solace from the sun’s baking rays. Thus we see a transition from scarlety red via the purply blue path through the burnished, charred-edged oranges and fruity greens to the darker recesses of the oil ink blues like a colour spectrum from hot to cool. Again another use of the refractionist motif. Not only are my paintings often refractionist in terms of e.g. light coming through materials as through tree leaves, shedding light ‘stain glass-like’ but in this case symbolising a progression of temperature and the experience of this variation in heat. The rich boiling bloody reds in the foreground also contrast to the purply blue colours of the path. This spreading of light across these different temperature textures also has a ‘lava lamp’ effect’ as if the oily colours slide across the canvas. The path’s purply blues suggests a transition, a comfortable inviting passage to the cooling shade of the far trees. The far ice cool blue contrasts from the initial, foreground liquidly purples, which in their calm serenity suggest relief from the distress of the exasperated, bad tempered heat.
The top of this painting has echos of Cezanne in it; quite accidently I am sure. My husband is a devotee of Cezanne but I have always failed to see the attraction. While in Paris, my husband dragged me reluctantly to an exhibition of Paul Cezanne’s earlier, transformative work. I was far from impressed I must admit, trying desperately to ‘get into it’ especially as my husband looked almost despairing at my inability to ‘get it’. Most of the ‘classics’ were missing for a start – we wandered through the actual pictorial representation of years of Cezanne’s attempts to find ‘his style’. This was quite encouraging in the end, to think even the ‘greats’ have to delve and dig to unearth the technique that most expresses their artist soul. It was reassuring to realise even Cezanne struggled to find his artistic voice. There is hope for us all. I was quite prepared to leave the gallery with this reassurance that maybe even for me… maybe one day. In the final couple of rooms there was a beginnings of the art ephiphany that my husband must have experienced before. Cezanne was beginning to illustrate how we see, not paint what we see with accuracy. He was almost painting the act of ‘seeing’, the experience of it . The breaking down of light, colour, form into ‘patches’ which then all sort of ‘added’ up to the final image; this was illuminating. Why had I not seen this before?
It was a perception in the making according to my husband, who researches neuroscience and is fascinated by perception, how it is constructed. But here we have a painter, an artist, nearly a hundred years ago showing how perceptions is built, via these ’patches’ 0f colour and form. He added that these ‘patches’ are more representative of what and how we see than some other painting of something which is dead to the experience of viewing it. A facsimile of the image. Expression thus may not just be about the feeling or experience of seeing something but a representation of how we see it. How could I have been so blind!? Thus I now paint to express how one feels while ‘perceiving’ the movement of the heart that accompanies the taking in through the senses. The exhilaration of seeing and perceiving. The wonder in the everyday, the extraordinary in the ordinary. Perceiving as a ‘dynamic’ act – an act most ‘vital’ not ‘completed’, finished or done with but being done. Not sunk into canvas or laden with inertia but alive , invigorating, changing, in construction, moving. Not categorised but fluid, still being defined, joyful and light not itemised and final. Not an interpretation but being intrepretated. Active not passive. Now not then. In the present not past tense. Constantly evolving in the moment. Presently present. Here, now, inaffable. Transcending. This what I hope to achieve on this long journey to expressing oneself. To learn how to transport the viewer to the now, to a vaguely remembered, or imagined even, place in the heart. To the obscurely wonderful feeling of being nowhere else but here.
I am very excited to have an article in today’s Irish Independent on Sunday about me and work by Niall McMonagle. Below is my expanded Q & A interview that was much edited to feature in Niall McMonagle’s What Lies Beneath feature . It’s interesting to see that the online version had a different […]
I am delighted to have another of my painting adapted for a novel cover by an Irish writer. This time my painting “Cottage on Bunbeg Harbour” (2019) has been used for the Spanish translation of Donal Ryan’s “Strange Flowers” or rather “Flores Extrañas”. I have started reading the original and I am thoroughly enjoying it. […]
In my last post I decribed visiting the abandoned fishing village of An Port tucked away in a remote corner of the Donegal shoreline (read it here). We were inspired to seek out this very remote spot by American artist Rockwell Kent, who visited and painted the area in the 1920s. I was waiting for […]
An Port has loomed large in my imagination for a long time. It’s very remote and quite difficult to get to. To reach it, you have to drive down a very, very long single track road (it’s about three miles but it feels longer) on the way to Glencolmcille. There are plenty of sheep and […]
New Work & Recent Sales
Washing Line, Arranmore _Emma Cownie
Inishcoo (To The Fore of Arranmore) – Emma Cownie
Kinnagoe Bay (Inishowen, Dongal)
Over Glenlough Bay, Donegal-Emma Cownie
Still, On Gola (Donegal)
An Port, Donegal_Emma Cownie
House on Ishcoo, Donegal-Emma Cownie
On Rutland Island, Donegal -Emma Cownie
Spring on THree Cliffs Bay, Gower_Emma Cownie
Portnoo_Emma Cownie
Sun on the Reeds (Glentornan, Donegal)-Emma Cownie
View from the Pier (Portnoo)-Emma Cownie
From Port to Glenlough (Donegal)
Fishing Boat at Port Donegal-Emma Cownie
Portnoo Pier, Donegal_Emma Cownie
Down to Rossbeg Pier, Donegal
Errigal reflection (Donegal) _Emma Cownie
Errigal from Cruit Island. Donegal _ Emma Cownie
Over to Fanad Lighhouse (Donegal) _Emma Cownie
Errigal painting – A Commission 2022
From Arranmore (Donegal)- Emma Cownie
Abanoned (Glentornan, Donegal) -Emma Cownie
Ferry Home (Arranmore, Donegal) by Emma Cownie
Summer Morning on Pobbles Bay
Fanad
On the Way to Kinnagoe Bay (Drumaweer, Greencastle)
Down to Doagh Strand (Donegal)-Emma Cownie
Lambing Season at Fanad Head
Fanad Lighthouse (Donegal)
Down to the Rusty Nail
Carrickabraghy Castle, Inishowen
Upper Dreen_Emma Cownie
Portmór Beach, Malin Head, Donegal
Down to the Rusty Nail, Inishowen
The Walls of Derry
Painting of Derry City
Derry Walls by Emma Cownie
Shipquay Gate by Emma Cownie
Over to Owey Island (Keadue) Donegal
Lighting the way to Arranmore
Old Stone Cottage in front of Errigal (Donegal
Boat at the Pier, Gola
House on Inishbofin, with distant Seven Sisters (in studio)