The Room Above Has a Waterfall

The studio I moved into in West Cork in 2024 has a long corrugated iron roof. A week after I moved in a squall of rain hit it. The noise was unmerciful, like being underneath a waterfall. I took it as a powerful introduction, nature saying hello.

The studio is right by the sea in the middle of a small town with its own magical personality. The cats hang out in the ivy on the roof waiting for the seagulls and pigeons to land. When they do there is a massive clatter above your head as if you are about to be invaded, then it goes quiet again. At four in the afternoon the Albanian lads next door wake up for the night shift and put on their music for half an hour while they get ready. All that mad energy floats in through the walls. Then it goes quiet again and you are back to the painting.

I drive two different ways to get here. One road passes fields and gardens, pink hydrangeas and roses in summer, then the golds of autumn, rich brown manure piled in the fields waiting to be spread in spring. The other way is wilder, more coastal. Deserted beaches, washed up seaweed, waves crashing in on wild windy days. Both roads have entered these paintings.

A year would pass sometimes between one brushstroke and the next, and I am there watching, reading, avoiding, waiting for the painting to tell me what to do next.

You are the first people to see them.

Martin