“I grew up in the wild and magical landscape of the west coast of Ireland. The qualities of that landscape with its ever-shifting texture of sea and sky, small rocky fields and hawthorn bushes bent by winter gales, live within me as inner landscape. The continually changing weather—dark moody skies with rolling clouds, which can at any moment give way to a sudden burst of sunlight—bring everything into a heightened state of color and aliveness.

In my oils and pastels, I explore the metamorphic effects of weather upon the landscape. I am intrigued by the way color changes –how it manifests itself and dissipates as elements meet and cross. Working with thin veils of oil, or a fine dust of pastel, which can be rubbed in and lifted off, allows me to explore such an ephemeral subject. 

The landscape of eastern Long Island, where I currently live and work, is of a very different quality. Its texture is much more light-reflective – large expanses of sandy shore and flat farmland. The juxtaposition of these two environments creates a tension and a balancing of forces, which provide a very rich soil from which to create new form and expression.” — RB