There is a mood and spirit in the Irish landscape that I feel strongly connected to, and I try to express this in my painting.

My work is a physical and emotional response to what I see, rather than a representative interpretation. I try to paint the feeling of a place.

I love to work outdoors, experiencing all the elements that shape and mark the land and sky.  These changes are forever opening up new forms to explore - new marks to make.  Back in the studio I sometimes focus on tiny, almost hidden aspects that are revealed to me.  These are further developed into large abstract pieces.

For the last eighteen months, I have been working on a series of paintings I call "The Living Earth Series".  These paintings are mainly based on the bogs of Kildare and Wicklow.

I see bogs as living, breathing, entities but its the layers of organic underground that seems to be coming to the surface or laying the foundations that eventually become a painting.  I'm working with more layers of paint than before.  Frank Auerbach said of his work that "Every layer is another poem", so I take encouragement from this.

I feel this project is in its first phase at the moment.  My intention is to develop this theme further and experiment with more textured media incorporating soil, turf, bog-cotton and other elements found in the bogs.

And perhaps other complimentary elements like sound and music to be part of the show too.

For me then it is often the unheard and unseen resonance of place which preoccupy me, where I try define sense of place.