Informed by Seascape, Landscape and Still Life, this most precious of paintings is a celebration of paint. The materiality is stretched to its limits and the investigations in colour have resulted in the most exquisite palette that now informs the direction of travel.
 
Embedded with a love of Irish landscape and a romantic notion of place, Heaney's poetry woven through as narrative  alongside a lean into Rococo and the most under celebrated Dutch female painters of the period. It's worth remembering that Rococo art of the 18th century was bursting forth, away from the heavy laden Baroque that pre-dated it into a freer more abundant space of colour and space.
 
Painted onto heavy 650GSM Irish Linen around a bespoke stretcher, this was always destined to be a special piece.
Under gilding with 24ct Gold Leaf is used across the central panel of the front face and then, as is always my way, the layers of paint began to build. Layering, mixing directly on the linen with brush, palette knife and hand, and when the paint is beginning to dry I start to add pigment directly.
A patina is built up using cold wax which affords the subtle variation on light and tone as it cures which means even in a painting as large as this, there is a watercolour lightness to it with the translucency of the wax.