Paintings : Landscape

The Irish landscape has engaged Carmel Mooney's imagination from the very beginning of her painting career. In the early days as she learned to paint, due to family commitments she would paint subjects that were easily accessible (in practical terms) - still life, obviously, but also the fields, bog, haystacks and cattle that were familiar subjects from her own childhood in the Irish countryside.

This theme of familiarity is central to all Carmel's work; a familiarity or intimacy with her subject both in the sense of an emotional affinity and in terms of practical knowledge or experience. As she says:

"I could not / would not want to paint anything for which I did not have feeling. I would not approach and immediately start to paint. I need to get a sense of the place, to walk the land."

One notable feature of the Irish landscape is the quality of light; as well as providing a misty veil of interderminacy to thwart attempts at objective depiction, and - all too often - a muted palette of colours, there is also the west of Ireland pheneomenon of the 'sunburst'. In this, a sudden shaft of light will break through the cloud cover, rather like a spotlight, illuminating a single area of mountain or field. All these elements of light are combined in Carmel Mooney's Irish landscape paintings.

Since encountering the rich intensity of colour of the volcanic landscape in Lanzarote and Sicily, Carmel Mooney has actually revisted the Irish landscape with renewed force:

"Because of my experience with pure colour over the past ten years or so, I would like to deal with Irish landscape with this emphasis when it suggests itself in the future. Living in Ireland, as I do, I don't think I could ever get away from the Irish landscape. I will always be attracted to the Irish landscape / language / mist and mountain thing, all interwoven, full of half-statements and mystery. I like to paint in Kerry, particularly in bad weather, letting the occasional shaft of light highlight a detail."