Culture Night 2016 - RTE Lyric fm Limerick - Music and visual collaboration.

Seven graduates of Limerick School of Art and Design including myself will display our art digitally in RTE lyric fm window at Robert Street, Limerick on Culture Night and until the end of September.

Each of us artists were asked to write about the role of music in our daily creative practice, along with showing a painting.  Read all about all the artists choice of music and artwork by following the link to www.rte.ie/lyric/exhibition

This is what I wrote:

To the unknowing eye my studio appears somewhat chaotic and when I am not painting I spend my time making collages, researching, and writing amid a confusion of material.  But when the time comes to paint and I am ready, I cannot wait to begin.  Starting a new work is the most exciting thing!

My music choices are somewhat untidy too and, much to the embarrassment of my children, instead of listening on my iPhone I generally listen to my CDs on an old Walkman. Everything from Greenday to Willie Nelson have a place in my collection but my favourite, for a really long time, is the music of Puccini.  The music takes me back to my first time seeing Madam Butterfly and to how I was transported by the emotion and drama of the music. I felt as though I was sitting alone in the theatre so powerful was the sensation. Un Bel Di, Vedremo, from Madam Butterfly still manages to do that.  As I listen in my studio, I feel my shoulders and neck relax and this allow me to paint more instinctually and freely.  When my painting day is over, both the subject matter and the surface of the paintings I have worked on tells the story of my day and in part the music I have listened to. 

'But it might rain' My current favourite painting!