James C. Byrne

James C. Byrne, born 1974, second oldest of five brothers and five sisters. James is a self taught artist and lives just outside of his hometown of Fermoy county Cork.

He started painting using oils on canvas and has since moved onto acrylic paint with a varnish finish. After sharing a studio for a number of years with artist and friend Jim Mellis, from who he learned a great deal about the discipline of painting, James had a number of exhibitions in his home town both group and solo.

Currently working in his own studio his work can be found on display in Ardmore Tea room and Gallery and Torten Fermoy also in a Jazz Music Venue coffee shop in Prague city centre.

A sense of urgency in developing his works for so long alone has at times left him seemingly chasing shadows, but he believes that it helped him find a balance.

" I want to allow the painting to reveal itself and follow it without fear to it's finish. Emotions, colours, movement, nature, conversations, experiences, dreams and music are all ingredients to the piece. Sometimes the worst thing you can do is think it through. The painting should be fun and the process of it should leave you happily exhausted and excited."

Eoin O'Conoor

Eoin O Connor is living and working in Aughrim, Co. Wicklow. His palette is dominated by strong powerful tones that are rich in contrast; He finds his motifs in the immediate surroundings of his native Ireland, the landscapes, the sea, the farmsteads and its many Characters.

Before painting Eoin had a back ground in Architecture which explains his assured drawing style that forms the basis for his compositions.

His work is striking, uplifting and memorable in the way he succeeds in bringing something new to the everyday by exaggerating his perspectives coupled with a truly courageous use of colour.

Eoin has two galleries, Art box Kinsale and Art box Enniskerry

See more at www.eoinoconnor.com

Damaris Lysaght

Damaris grew up in Doneraile, Co Cork. She studied Fine Art for two years at the Crawford Municipal School of Art in Cork and, for an additional two years, at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.

She was awarded an Italian Government Scholarship to continue her painting studies in Florence with the renowned teacher of classical painting Nerina Simi.

Since those four years work in the Simi Studio she has been painting full time. She lived on a small organic farm near Kanturk, Co.Cork with poet Seamus Hogan until they moved to Ballydehob in 2009.

She says of he work:

"My paintings are a way of meditating on nature. They are a way of being aware of its growth and inter-relationships, varying moods and atmospheres, the cycles of death and rebirth…literally watching plants grow. For example, seeing a bindweed’s tip rotating full circle during a morning’s painting in its effort to twine around a stem, or watching a rain drop splash and send its echo across a stretch of water. My paintings are an effort to capture a moment or fragment of this.’"