Official opening by Neasa Ní Chianáin, Documentary Filmmaker

‘In our modern lives, we’re losing our connection to the land, we cement over it and try to control and tame the bits we allow to exist. We’re losing sight of how essential nature is to our very well-being. I feel this wonderful collection of paintings, is a call to stop for a moment and marvel at the beauty we still have out there. It’s a call to slow down and immerse ourselves in our waters, our woodlands, our mountains, our landscapes. Allow ourselves to be held  by nature, allow ourselves to disappear into the majesty of it and as Michelle so eloquently put it, ‘see the whole world in one place’.  Neasa Ní Chianáin

Read Neasa’s full opening speech here :

Artist conversation with Jean Ryan, Art Historian

The United Arts Club

3 Upper Fitzwilliam St.

Dublin 2

01 6611411

office@unitedartsclubdublin.com

In this exhibition of oil paintings ‘Here is where we meet’ the artist jouneys into the memory and mood of her local landscape. Where Michelle’s watercolours capture the immediacy of swimming and working plein air, her oil paintings are developed with reflection and emotion in the silence of her rural studio.

Through the artist’s imagination we are brought to places of quiet unease. The time of day and viewpoint enhance this sense of otherness reflected in paintings with titles including ‘Night of the Wolf Moon’ and ‘Weasel mink to the kill’ . Sometimes a single person is depicted, absorbed within the frame of the painting looking straight out to the viewer. Perhaps with the awareness that this encounter is a passing moment in time.

Michelle has degrees in Landscape Archaeology and (MA) and Cultural Anthropology (BA) but in her words :

I had to come live in the countryside, walk the roads and swim in the lake at night to ‘feel ‘ landscape as a living agency. A deeply layered ancient place where I see myself and others, but a place we are each just passing through

Michelle Boyle

May 2024