Trees have knots or burls or knarls. They get them from stress. They create these knarly knots to protect themselves. They can even use these burls to sprout new trees. They can communicate to other trees, through these knots & burls. I like to think that when we look at the surface of the bark, the trunk of the tree, that you can see into these little portals and think about the life force of that tree. And I like to think of it over the day, from light to dark. And how the trees look so different in moonlight and so very different in the light of dawn. In a fog or covered in snow. With green leaves and birds chirping in nests.

From childhood, I used to walk into The Phoenix Park in Dublin. It was less populated with people. I used to walk amongst the trees and I would be drawn into these knots and knarls and burls. I would just sit with them. And sometimes I would do pencil sketches. I’d look into the knot, kind of in a daydream and draw.

I’d imagine what was inside the tree. All the worlds inside.

In 2000 I was lucky enough to have a studio in Kilmainham Mills, which had just ceased manufacturing textiles. The owner Damien Shine was a producer of a theatre show that I was doing in San Francisco. We rehearsed the new play “By the Barrow” in the Mills and then when we came back to Ireland, he offered me the space to work in. So I took up a four month residency and in the December of that year I held a show there called “The Mule Rooms” (original name of the space).

I exhibited a collection of sculpture, ceramics and a small collection of Tree Knot paintings based on my sketches of those Mother Trees in The Phoenix Park. I gifted them to Damien as a thank you.

I returned to these paintings 20 years later during COVID. In 2021/22 I found the very deep black paint I used before, in a hardware store in Belfast.

It is a hypnotic, luxurious, light reflective paint.

In these paintings I also use copper and oxidised copper.

I like remnants or found pieces of copper too. I added gold, gold leaf, oxidised gold leaf, silverleaf, oxidised silver leaf, copper leaf and oxidised copper leaf.

What happens to the paintings as light reflects onto them really excites me. As the light changes so do the paintings.The metalic elements reflect light in a different way. A natural alchemy for the eye.

I like this a lot. The paintings will change with their environment. They remind me of those trees and their knarly knots.

A conversation between nature, light and the viewer.

For this collection, I took my old drawings & sketches as a starting point.

I let the feeling of these works sit in my imagination and then I began this collection of paintings.

Each one is completely different.

I also hoped my love of Japanese calligraphy would come through.

The contemplation of the black line.

The marks emanating from my full attention & embodiment as I began each canvas.

That’s how these paintings are created.

An act of love and trust with the canvas.

If the collection is being exhibited, I would very much like that they should be exhibited not in one light but a special lighting design that follows the 24 hour cycle of light. So in a way, the paintings will be illuminated somewhat like how the light enters the New Grange chamber. A Portal.

The light enters and leaves.

So you would have dawn, daylight, into dusk, sunset, into moonlight and then, the night.

Or a single light source like the sun moving around the room. Slowly or emanating from the centre of the gallery.

The gallery might also have sound score like birdsong.

Or a moment when the sun gets really strong and all the golds in the paintings reflect at a high frequency.

The paintings in domestic spaces will naturally change as the day passes into the home, office, abode.