(To view paintings click on the album on the side bar on the right).
Most recent exhibition was 15th May to 13th of June 2008. The opening was by Colm Murphy.
At the Cork City & County Archive
Seamus Murphy Building Great William O'Brien Street
Blackpool
Cork
The work emerged from my experience of Cork City as a lifeworld, and specifically, the changing nature of that lifeworld. The layered unfolding of its landscape, its interaction with the passing of time is one that inspires me. As a painter, I seek to capture the nuances constituting that changing landscape, and thereby bring to mind our past, and the journey that we take with the environment that is our home. As a native of Cork City, I bring a keen sense of the evolving cityscape to my work, and this is represented in my painting. The passing of time brings with it an organic development to the architectural shape and fabric of the city, one that is interwoven into the experience of daily life for its residents. My paintings bring this passage of time to the fore, as represented by the heightened play of light, colour and shadow, calling to mind the transient nature of our experience.
The River Lee Project has enabled me to explore my vision of the meaning of the cityscape; to explore my understanding of it as a lifeworld. The river - symbolising an essential element of city life - interplays with my vision as a painter; it has become the backdrop against which my sense of the excitement and delight of the City are played out, enabling me to express something of what we are, and the role that our environment plays for us. The solid quay walls tell their own story. They are a stable, solid and unchanging factor. Above them things are happening...
Through this project I would like to awaken an appreciation for our experience with the environment, evoking a sense of our past and a vision of our future. By choosing to represent experience through representational painting, I am calling on my background as a decorative artist. My prior work was the application of traditional painting methods to the home environment. During the years when I ran this business, my skills as a painter developed, along with the hope of fulfilling my lifelong desire to express my vision through painting. It is my hope that those of you who viewed "The River Lee Project" exhibition will concur.
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