City of Tiny Lights II, ©John O’Grady 2014
Oil on deep edged Canvas, 20″x 20″ x 1&3/4″ deep.

Not for Sale

My paintings seem to be taking a little memory road trip around South County Dublin and Co Wicklow at the moment. This road is the main artery out of Dublin city and can lead to Glendalough, the destination of my previous painting.

As shown in the series “Take me to the Island”, I am drawn to solitary viewpoints on the edge of something, looking out across the sea to an island or looking at the city from a place of silence, wondering what lives people lead there…

Of course a city has a different feel to an Island but to look at a city at night, the glow of the lights suggests the magical, the mysterious and the beguiling. It’s poetry. Emotions, experiences, life and death are all played out in all their richness in a city.

I really enjoy painting the slither of time between light and dark, when the world takes on a particular atmosphere. I like the expression the French use ‘entre chien and loup‘, a time when we don’t know for definite what’s what and yet twilight is the time when the lights come on increasingly glowing as the darkness encroaches.

This is painted on canvas on deep sided stretchers. The sides of the canvas are painted white.

I have not painted on canvas for a while and enjoyed the change. When using different materials you always wonder how it’s going to behave. In this case, the weave picked up the paint well especially when capturing the lights of the city.

The deep sided stretchers means that this painting doesn’t need to be framed and is ready to hang.

I would love to hear what you think.