Many years on, I am grateful for the insights afforded to me by a few inspirational art lecturers; Ruskin Spear, a student of Sir Walter Sickert, who gave me a great love of tonal painting, Fred Bushe, OBE and founder of the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, who taught me how to see, and consequently to understand, form, shape, line and the power of abstraction. Then there were the memorable lecturers at The University of London, who unfolded for me the architectural marvels of the Classical World, the great cathedrals of Medieval Europe and the magnificence of Renaissance Painting and Sculpture. One such lecturer was ‘Tessa’, who  brought to life ‘Painting of The Last Hundred Years’ so vividly that it instilled in me an excitement and motivation for Art that was to sustain me for the rest of my life.
While I never stopped painting completely, I spent many years teaching Art, rearing children and coping with other complications that life visits on one, so it is now, with great pleasure that I am back painting full time.

I have drawn inspiration for painting from the numerous threads that make up the tapestry of life. It was in Italy, as an aupair after my Leaving Cert., that I first started painting seriously. Since then I have sustained an interest in painting abroad. I have a special love for France and especially Paris, having visited and painted there many times and have exhibited in both Avignon and La Rochelle.
I particularly like painting Still Life and I find it a keen artistic exercise, both demanding and rewarding. Forest, Landscapes and Waterscapes are among my favourite subjects, perhaps because quite a part of my childhood was spent in the depths of the countryside and by the seaside in County Wexford. I now get great pleasure in painting scenes of my native Co. Wicklow.     

 I work more realistically, but at all times enjoy the edginess that exists in painting, between what the eye observes, and what goes on in the imagination. At times I love to work quite abstractly, exploring the connection between materials and subject matter. One thing that I am sure of is that almost every painting is a challenge, vacillating between a labour of hate and a labour of love!

I am a member of The Watercolour Society of Ireland, an All Ireland Award winner, a professionally trained Painter, Sculptor, Art Historian, and  an Art and Drama teacher of many years experience. I have had many important commissions and my work is in a number of private collections both in Ireland and abroad. I have exhibited in many of the major group exhibitions in Dublin and nationwide over the years as well as having had a few solo exhibitions.
I am a full time artist and work from my studio on the Beech  Road in Arklow.