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Paul McCloskey

Paul McCloskey was born in Carrickmacross Co. Monaghan, Ireland. But is now living
and working in Gorey Co. Wexford. Paul attended the National College of Art and Design
(N.C.A.D) Dublin from 1981 and graduated with honours in 1986. Paul also attended De
Montfort University UK and was awarded a Masters Degree in Fine art painting (MFA).Paul
is a full member of visual artists Ireland. He has been involved in art and design education
for the past 22 years.

He has exhibited widely throughout Ireland and internationally with great success. He has
been short listed on a number of occasions to represent Wexford both at home and abroad.
He has travelled and worked throughout Europe and Australia.

“My most recent series of paintings called ‘Awakening’ and ‘Awakening Reloaded’ (oil on canvas/
board) attempt to highlight the familiar, the places and things we see every day, to see with fresh
eyes the beauty that’s all around us and to awaken, refresh and enlighten us to the fact that eve-
rything we need to know is already inside and all around us. Currently I’ve been working with
landscape, for now it facilitates me in portraying that sense of immensity and space which in
turn assists me in expressing the power of spirit, the glory of something greater than me but con-
nected to me. This is intended to evoke to some degree a sense of spirit, of enormity through the

ethereal qualities of the paint using this vastness of landscape of matter and space as the catalyst
in which to express this. I have also used the theme of seasons as a way to suggest the begin-
ning and end, the circle of life. My paintings attempt to summon a primordial energy and reveal
a sense of the power of nature, energy and Spirit. The use of gold within the ‘Reloaded series’
of paintings stems from this concept of the halo and the flat gold leaf backgrounds of the early
Greek iconography. Although these gold areas coexist with the painted areas of light perceived as
being more natural to the painted landscape, its purpose however is principally to separate di-
vine/spiritual light from earthly light, gold being precious and standing out as extraordinary, in-
tending to evoke a sense of the sacred aiming not so much to evoke particular emotions although

that may well arise but to evoke a sense of connection to spirit.
The beauty of my surrounded environment, the wonder of its creation is the starting point and
one cannot be but moved by the splendour of creation, however that connection to this splendour
with the absence of ego is expressed from inside. I have built up layers of paint under some of
the gold areas to add texture and shimmer thus adding further to the dimensional element of the
paintings, as the idea of spirit is that it is all things and all directions simultaneously. I attempt
to reflect this dichotomy by allowing the shapes and colours to interchange from solid (enhanced
by impasto layers) to atmospheric on the canvas surface. The intention is to bring all things
together, textural, atmospheric, dark, light and gold causing a tension and cohesion forming
explosive qualities that transcend the two dimensional surface of the canvas. The emergence of
the landscape bathed in light, giving glimpses to its vast splendour and adds a mystical element

to the paintings. In places sky and earth are as one, evoking for me the sense of personal growth,
the sense of awakening to the beauty, divinity and perfection, to the divine order within all
things. This suggestion of heaven and earth in constant struggle, merging yet separable, solid yet

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