Coming soon Micheάl Mάirtin - There to Here

`There to Here`, as an apt title for my exhibition, came to me `out of the blue', as thoughts of all kinds often do. It`s as good as any, sufficing to describe the process of making Art. Whatever interests I latch on to, becoming even obsessed with, provide fertile grounds for exploring visually, until I can lay them aside for a while. This suggests of course that no piece is ever finished or
even part of a complete series on a given theme. All too true in my case. I`ve had a great time over the past couple of years reading about the pre-Christian myths of Ireland: still having a profound effect on the country`s culture and creativity. Seanchaithe (Storytellers in an oral tradition)) are still performing, linking present to ancient past, and there is still much for me to draw on from there. The medium of print seemed the most visually exciting way to express what I`d gained from a whole summer of reading.

JD Innis and Augustus John, the Welsh painters, have given me a way back to a love for landscape painting. Since 2023, I`ve been getting up to Nant Ddu near Bala to draw and paint with other artist friends, as Innis and John did before the First World War. Some of the Arenig Fawr work on show here has been
done in homage to them: the rest from my own intense experiences of just being next to the mountain. For Innis, in the end, Arenig Fawr represented the love of his short life, Euphemia Lamb. Before he died of consumption, he buried her letters to him on the mountain`s summit. `The Letter` piece was
painted in honour of that poignant story.

`Bowling at Clun`, taken from my sketches overlooking the bowling green there one September in 2017, was the first real painting on my journey to making visual art again.

`Rhiw Landscape` is my most recent piece of work and points to the next place on the journey.

To paraphrase Matisse, `the artist must be prepared to journey forth`.

Meet the Artist Open Evening is on Friday 8 August 2025 7- 9 pm.  Everyone welcome.