Patrick Conyngham
Patrick Conyngham was born in Drogheda, Co Louth in 1959. He attended the Lee Strasbourg School of Acting in New York, before returning to London and then to Ireland in 1990. He lives and works in County Monaghan as an artist, poet and writer. His novel ‘Between the Hills was published in 2006 by Tuba Press who also published various books of poetry and short stories by him.
As a self taught artist he has exhibited widely in galleries in the UK and Ireland, including the Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast and The Stour Gallery, Warwickshire, Uk and the paintings are in public and private collections in Ireland, England, America and Europe.
He shares, “Intrinsic nature for me as an artist is to allow paintings to flow out as a kind of diary or story, a dialogue between inner and outer worlds. They hopefully reverberate out further into the world as they engage the viewer. They well up, bubbling on a vibration, picking up on the power of paint’s prophecy. Intimations and feelings towards things to come are accessed through the valve of imagination. The themes include an empathy for landscape, earth, humanity and the internal soul.
The act of making each picture is a kind of prayer or invocation and allows the subconscious to speak. It is a journey, a story of shades, colours and tones. It is a belief in the power of art to change. Art can register a movement within that is uplifting, even transforming and linked to the power of talismans, icons, early cave paintings, African or North American Indian totemic art, and to children’s art with its ability to transmit the sensation of seeing things for the very first time. It is this quality that I am attempting to capture in the work so that it can deliver its message to the viewer by resonance.
This series of works are based on the idea of submitting to the invisible waters of life, always flowing. First a stream, then a majestic river with all the eddies and byways of the massive watercourse of our lives. They aim to touch upon the nerve of now.”
See more of his work at https://www.patrickconyngham.com.
