Four young painters took their first steps in the world as professional artists on Wednesday night. The four graduates from the National College of Art and Design gathered in the Ashford Gallery, attracting a large crowd to the opening of their work.
Clare Cashman, from Cloghroe, Co Cork, was there with her brother, Johnny Cashman, and sister, Margaret Cashman. She says she's interested in "illusions of space and how one's perception of space is challenged". She explained that she has photographed the reflections of landscape in water. The images come from places in Connemara and Macroom; the reflections "are just illusions", she said. In her oil paintings, she's "trying to create a space that is indefinite or ambiguous, that we are absorbed in, that's a contemplative place as well".
Ross McDonnell from Dalkey "was more interested in process" than in the images. After layering his canvas, he explained, "the oil seeps into unprimed wood. The bits which are primed or sealed hold the paint".
Artists Carmel Kelly and Rosemary O'Reilly, along with former gallery owner Marjorie Walshe, were especially impressed with his paintings.
Nita Daly, a mature student who gave up her job as a clerical officer in the ESB to study art, based her work on Glendalough and "decided to go very big". In her large diptychs she "honed in on the waterfall. It speaks of life and transience," she said.
Sheila Melvin explained that her work deals with photographs she took in New York in January last year, and her "emotional response to September 11th". "I was also concerned with the technical end of photography, pushing it back to painting. I love painting, I love the immediacy - hand, heart, eye, that's all you need."
The exhibition by NCAD graduates runs at the Ashford Gallery, RHA, Ely Place, Dublin, until Wednesday, September 18th.