Happy july.....the start of a fabulous exhibition Im excited to tell you about....

...Hi all, I know I've to stop starting every blog post with a "can you believe what month it is already"!!  comment... but Jaysus lads its JULY!!!!

And July in my world means only one thing...I have 25 days to tell you about a wonderful new exhibition, a collaboration of minds, hearts and occurrences that are about to happen through my artwork and the artwork of these wonderful wonderful creative minds pictured below!

I am blessed to have a wonderful community of artists and creative beings within my circle of friends, tried and true, and these ladies are no exception...listed Left to Right are Kate Beagan, Roisin Duffy, Jackie Hudson Lalor, Jo Cummins and yours truly (with old hair - tis pink now don't ya know!)

This particular photo (I love it) was taken a long time ago, when we used to meet for coffee, share the news, advise and congratulate and commiserate each other on the happenings in our arts careers and our lives....but we took this photo the day we discussed properly looking at exhibiting together.

We were all dealing with different aspects of life, as you do!, different boundaries, changes - good and bad, and whilst we had chatted about these aspects of our respective lives previously, and at length, it was only when we joked... "There's a show in all of this".... that we actually clicked! Our shared experiences are not entirely our own! We all at times hit bumps on the road, personally, financially, medically, globaly, politically...even historically but rarely uniquely, and so it was decided we would seriously look at expanding on this topic within our own works.

I won't lie I found it an easy transgression for me initially, on the back of my #hiddenoutloud series of works...I had started to talk about my illness, even the quote for the thinking behind all of this new focus was from that series "How do you live when all the walls around you have shifted"..it was from my perspective at that time, all about housing the self in crisis, or chronic illness as was my bag! What I hadn't factored into the mix was that I had done that work, explored that avenue, ripped myself raw on it.... and it had been such a cathartic period of time for me that I'm sure it's very production was the catalyst for my healing as I am some time now in remission from the worst of my debilitating chronic fatigue. (MAJOR DISCLAIMER - I didn't just paint it out peeps - its taken an entire change in life long living habits but it definitely opened me up mentally, spiritually and emotionally for that change and all the hard work that had to follow!)

As is often the way, the new work was flowing in a different direction to this thinking, I was still working in monotype but looking toward issues of ascension, clarity and wisdom in my #shapeoflife works, however not entirely...for some time there was no work at all, nothing, nada...as I tried to get myself well, all my focus was on my physical and mental well being, pacing, adjusting, building stamina took priority over any desire to create and although this exhibition has been in the pipework for sometime now I only began to refocus on this "Shifting Walls" idea in January when I had time, head-space and the tranquillity to ruminate on it whilst on a wonderful residency in CillRialliag in wild and wonderful West Kerry.....and thus a new body of work was developed.

"Left of Field" is a series of works that took me from that dark to light, all my new protocols had started to kick in by december and here I was in Kerry in January, feeling well, energised, enthusiastic ...for the first time in AGES I saw and felt the old me on the return...this series of seven wax and pigment monotypes were started there...in that space, in that place and in that, mentally and physically restored self...huge strides for me HUGE...MEGGA.

I'm looking forward to sharing them with you and whilst this is only one aspect, my aspect, of this amazing lineup of artists, stories and works, I'm excited to share it with you.

I will talk about this work and this show so much in the coming weeks but for now simply save the date 25th July 2019, Strule Arts Centre, Omagh for SHIFTING WALLS.​( this is a touring show and will appear in Co. Monaghan later in the year and again in Drogheda in 2020...dates to follow)

Keep an eye out for my next blog post where I hope to introduce you to these other four amazing artists and their stunning works x N.