Land
E scape
Paul McCloskey (Ireland)
An artist’s statement
Visual artist Paul McCloskey was born in Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan and is now living and working in Gorey Co. Wexford. Paul attended the National College of Art and Design (N.C.A.D) Dublin from 1981 and graduated in 1986. Paul also attended De Montfort University UK and was awarded a Masters Degree in Fine art painting (MFA) in 2010. Paul is a professional member of ‘visual artists Ireland’. He has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally throughout the UK, London, Venice and New York and he has received many awards for his work, which can be seen in numerous collections. www.paulmccloskeyart.com The varied and stunning Irish landscape, coupled with our unsettled weather and therefore often fleeting and mottled light, inspires me greatly. Often a view will change or an area will be illuminated by a simple break in the clouds, highlighting as if a shimmering treasure or jewel, a corner of a field, the side of some rocky cliff or the dynamic sweeping curves of a valley reminding us that we are an integral part of and connected to a whole. Effectively, this encourages us to see and, most importantly, feel its beauty and spirit and therefore reconnect to this vital part of us, what we perceive as everyday and perhaps ordinary, the places we merely glance at without allowing ourselves to get lost in the breathtaking creation and beauty that surrounds us. The landscape for me is primarily a catalyst in expressing divinity and is therefore secondary, the primary purpose being process, allowing and presence. This suggestion of heaven and earth in constant struggle, merging yet separable, solid yet amorphous all suggest the multidimensional nature of the spiritual, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, the struggle within, between the conditioned self and the divine/spiritual self.
Paul McCloskey #196 Winter 42