Therese Healy Kelly

Therese Healy Kelly is the daughter of Conor and Noreen Healy, Rossacon, Newmarket. Born in 1972, Therese finally settled in Galway having travelled the world with her husband Jack. Painting was always a pastime for Therese, having studied Economics and Maths at UCC and finally qualifying as a teacher.

When she arrived in Galway from Melbourne, Australia with three small children, Therese decided to take her painting to another level. She went to art classes in the Paint Box in Barna under the tutelage of Miriam Cronin.

Her art developed here and Miriam has always been an inspiration and great mentor to Therese. At the Paint Box she found her niche and uses the medium of oils on canvas. Her influence comes from all around her. She always has her camera to hand and if she sees a scene that catches her eye she snatches it on camera.

Therese is presently working towards her first solo exhibition. She has donated paintings for charity auctions and her work is always very well received, raising much needed funds for deserving charities.

Her time is mostly taken up with her five children – Isobelle 7 yrs, David 5 yrs, Hugh 4 yrs, Zack 2 yrs and Baby Amelia who is 6 months. Her children of course are her first priority, but whenever she gets a chance she sits in her kitchen with her canvas and easel and gets lost in her painting.

Kanturk Arts Festival is very happy to provide a stage for Therese’s first exhibition locally.

Mary Walsh

Mary lives in Ballydesmond, Co Cork. She is a graduate of the Crawford College of Art and Design with a first class honours degree in Fine Art Painting. She has exhibited her work in many galleries and her work is represented in private collections in America and Ireland. Mary was awarded a residency in Cill Rialaig Artistic Project, Co. Kerry and a grant from IRD Duhallow.

Lucid dreaming is the emotional and imaginative source of Mary’s work, capturing the sub-consciousness in a series of snapshots, making it visible in a concrete way. First impressions are intended to create a false sense of serenity. Closer inspection reveals an unevenness that suggests insecurity. The ground is fleeting, its substance eroded by mist and diffused light. It is a submerged landscape out of which motifs emerge. A Tree, an abandoned building. A figure as if detached from its surroundings; capturing the essence that a dream brings, overlapping thoughts and forms, images melting into one another. There is the possibility of an emptiness that refers to hopelessness, a void. But this is punctured by the presence of the familiar, the little details that anchor our dreams in memory and experience. These are the experiences that give us reason to hope, they are our anchors in chaos.

Mary’s distinctive work and style, drawing strongly from the ‘hinterlands’, is much anticipated for the exhibition.

Vincent Crotty

Vincent is from Kanturk and, even though now living in Boston, the town and its environs has always been central to his work.

He began painting at the age of seven, inspired by his mother’s interest in art and his fascination with the play of light on his natural surroundings. On leaving school in the depressed economic conditions of the 1980s, Vincent spent five years working in a factory before determining “to make my living — one way or another — with paint.” He left his factory job and studied sign painting and interior decorating at Fás, and studied informally with the well-known West Cork sign painter Tomás Tuipéir: “My background in trade school has given me a hands-on approach rather than a cerebral one.  Being self-employed has forced me to follow my here-and-now instincts as an artist.  I take a fearless approach and slap on paint liberally. I harness happy accidents.”

Vincent then emigrated to Boston in 1990 to seek out further art training and studied with John Kilroy and Paul Rahilly.  He has attended the Scottsdale Artists School in Arizona and travelled widely to study plein air painting.

Largely self-taught, Vincent’s plein air approach creates a feeling of spontaneity and ease in his work. His paintings tell a story, convey vivid moods, and depict an immediate sense of place and time.

Through this approach, Vincent’s work resonates very strongly with the people of Kanturk and he receives strong support locally.

Therefore, even though an Invited Artist in 2009, Kanturk Arts Festival is happy to have him exhibiting again in 2010.

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John Philip Murray

John Philip lives near Lissarda in Co. Cork and has exhibited widely, nationally and internationally (see www.johnphilipmurray.com). The work exhibited at the Hinterlands exhibition will be part of his ‘Sacred Paths’ series – a long-term project on the human need for travel and pilgrimage as a means to connect with things beyond ourselves.

The project has a local as well as a universal element. The local takes the form of ongoing research into ancient pathways in the general area of north Cork, Kanturk, Millstreet, Banteer and environs. Some of these are the remains of well-documented routes, such as the Butter Road, others are less obvious.

John Philip acted as consultant to Kanturk Arts Festival in 2009 and his input was central to its success. The festival committee is therefore delighted that John Philip could accept this invitation to exhibit at the 2010 festival.

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Patrick Casey

A Kanturk native, Patrick Casey is a freelance press photographer covering the North Cork area for the last thirty years.

With his camera, Patrick has been a witness and keen observer of every facet of the region ranging from the apparent mundane to major news events as diverse as Ronald Regan’s visit to Ballyporeen and the hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest in Millstreet.

Having turned fifty last year, and prompted by the inaugural Kanturk Arts Festival in 2009, he has decided to mount his first solo photographic exhibition which will comprise of forty black and white images. The work will be non-thematic and will comprise some of his personal favorites from his archives as well as new material shot for the exhibition.

Some of Patrick’s work will be included in the Hinterlands’ exhibition, but a more extensive exhibition will be held in the Trades Union Hall.

Having been recording life in the region for so long, Patrick’s exhibition at the festival is much anticipated.