Light IV

Original oil and acrylic on canvas

40x40cm unframed

When I look at this, I hear the voices from my childhood, the laughter, my own voice as a child, but also the voices of those people who have slipped quietly away from my world, the connection brings me great joy, some painters describe how they paint sound and music each colour being heard.


In my paint and mark making I hear that time, the smells and emotions, in Mullaghfad, I remember that thin line of men scything the meadow hay, I was charged to take them a bottle filled with milk and stopped with a cork of rolled newspaper. As all children do, I decided to drink some on the way - the sourness of that buttermilk is something I will never forget along with the laughter of the men watching me.

“the plash and gurgle of the sour-breathed milk” - Seamus Heaney.