Take me to the island

Nadim Sadek, owner of Inishturkbeg island in Clew Bay, Co Mayo, invited seven artists to visit last summer and make work that would capture the island's moods. It is to become an annual event with an exhibition in London, writes GEMMA TIPTON

THERE ARE SOME views that make you realise why people feel compelled to paint them. They also make you feel a rush of sympathy for those artists, both amateur and professional, who can never quite “get” the image they have in their minds.

Inishturkbeg in Clew Bay, Co Mayo, is one such spot, and even though I have no great artistic talent, I would happily run through tubes of colour trying to catch its moods.

In a quest to express it, Nadim Sadek, Inishturkbeg’s owner, invited seven artists to visit and make work. Sadek is Irish, although his Egyptian father worked for the World Health Organisation, so Sadek’s childhood was spent travelling, until becoming a boarder at St Columba’s College in Dublin. He bought the island in 2003 after a birthday picnic there with his family. His wife, Sandra, comes from the area, so in one sense it’s a homecoming for the couple and their four children.

After studying psychology in Trinity College Dublin, Sadek went into marketing and advertising, and proved so successful at it that when he sold his company, Sadek Wynberg Research, he was able to buy Inishturkbeg and create something there that is part wild paradise, and part fantastic playground. But for the energetic Sadek, the island is also a business: you can stay there, buy ponies from the Connemara stud farm and also purchase its fish and whiskey (further product lines, including toiletries, are planned).

So far, it has been very successful. When the smoked salmon was launched in Harrods last November, it sold out as soon as it hit the shelves, and continues to do so. So what was it about Inishturkbeg’s salmon that caused people in London, who had possibly never heard of Clew Bay, to rush to buy it? Initially it was the packaging. Counter-intuitively, Sadek created closed packets, so what you see is an image of the island and the bay, together with the evocative lines: “From the world of Inishturkbeg, a rugged island off the wild west coast of Ireland, where life’s vividly lived.” It’s an intoxicating notion to sell to people stuck in a busy city.

Each of the seven artists who came to Inishturkbeg for a week last summer, and whose work will be on show in London next month, saw a different island, and the results are intriguing and amazing. Highlights include Nicola Hicks’s large charcoal drawings of the island ponies, staged photographs by Dutch artist Scarlett Hooft Graafland, and Laura Brennan’s misty meditations on island moments. Darren Edwards’s mountain made from tent poles and silk gives Inishturkbeg a new view, and Kay Harwood’s discovery of a dead bird is rendered strangely sublime in paint.

The Inishturkbeg Artists’ Week and exhibition is to become an annual event and, while it’s a way of adding value (to use the marketing term) to the other “products” of Inishturkbeg, it is also a way of opening up a very special place in Ireland to the world.

“I’m good with words,” says Sadek, “but to see this place in pictures is something I couldn’t do. I have been around the world, but there’s something about this place that is uplifting. The energy is different. I feel most special right here.” Catching this in art, and purveying it through fish and whiskey, he’s tapping into some very potent dreams.

Life Vividly Lived, Part 1 is at Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London, February 10th-14th. inishturkbeg.com