Passing Light

This painting was inspired by the sweeping mountain vistas across Ireland, places where the land rises suddenly and the sky seems to move faster than you can follow. What stays with me most is the way the weather can change in minutes: clouds gathering, drifting, breaking apart, and then returning again, each shift transforming the mood of the landscape.

With Passing Light, my intention was to capture that dramatic contrast, the bright, almost electric colour that appears when the sun hits, set against the darker, moodier sections that settle in as shadow returns. It’s a landscape in motion, not fixed to one time of day or one kind of atmosphere, but constantly reshaped by what’s happening overhead.

The piece was poured freestyle onto a prepared surface and built up in layers over time. The first layer began with a black, inky mix poured to create the foundation of the composition, essentially my “drawing” without pencils or a traditional sketch underneath. Because the pouring process is contactless, gravity and flow become part of the work, allowing the deeper tones to settle into the painting like gathering cloud.

From there, colour is introduced through pouring, dripping and splashing with pipettes, then pushing and blowing inks and washes across the surface before they dry. This is where the “passing light” comes alive: bright bursts and shifting tones that feel like sunlight breaking through, then slipping away again.

As the layers build, so does the texture and depth of the surface. The mix of gloss and matte effects means the painting changes depending on how the light moves across it, sometimes luminous and open, sometimes quieter and more brooding, echoing that ever-changing Irish weather that can transform the same view again and again.