Shortlisted for London Residency

Back in June, during the first month of the residency with Nes in Iceland, I applied for a residency with The Muse at 269 Art Gallery in West London. When I landed back in Ireland on the 30th of August I received an email telling me that I was through the first round and moving on to the next stage of application. For this stage I needed to send images of my work and after a week I was in the final stage and shortlisted for the residency.

On Tuesday the 25th of September I went to London for my interview. I got on pretty well but I didn't get selected for a position on the residency program. While I didn't get picked the gallery has offered to put my work forward as submission for a potential show in 2013 and during the interview I received very positive feedback towards my paintings.

Between getting shortlisted for the residency itself and the feedback I got during the interview the overall experience was a great boost of confidence and also I think the way it worked out may have been for the best at this point. The residency was due to start in January 2013 for 8 months and I feel it may have been a bit too quick having just returned from Iceland and I'm hoping to get working on some projects here in Ireland.

August in Iceland

My final month has gone really well at NES. I have to admit I'm a little bit heartbroken having to leave both NES and Skagastrond but the overall experience has been great, in the 3 months I was here I met and worked with some great people who even though I only got to know them for a month at a time I still consider them really good friends.

The month wasn't as busy maybe as July I think mostly because after 2 months I felt like August was a bit of a wind down period but I was painting away and passed the target I had set myself so I'm really happy with how the work went. My work has definitely progressed onto another path and I also have plenty of ideas for new work returning to Ireland. This month also saw 2 studio pot-lucks and 2 Open House days. It was a really nice way to end my stay in Skagastrond with a second festival - Kantrydagar. There seemed to be more activity for this festival than the Fisherman's Festival in June, There was a huge tent set up in the centre of town where music played most of the day and night, the was a ball on the Friday and Saturday nights at Kantrybaer, along with sports competitions. I made my second journey Saudarkrokur too earlier in the month. 

I'm looking forward to going home to Ireland but I would love to have stayed a bit longer in Iceland. Financially though I just can't, I pretty much had what covered 3 months on the mark and the way I'm fixed even staying for 1 more month is out of the question, but I am planning to return next summer to a different residency and over a shorter period of time. If get back to Iceland next summer I'll definitely visit NES and Skagastrond at some point. Right now it's 4 days in Reykjavik 1 night in the airport and the home via Heathrow

Like I said above I'm looking forward to getting back to Ireland and I intend to take some time away from the studio for a few weeks just to work on ideas and stand back and get a clear idea in my head of the Icelandic experience.

I want to say a massive thanks to Melody Woodnutt who is Director of NES and Andrea Weber who worked as Intern at NES and everyone on the board of NES for everything they did for us and for running a class residency.

See you Skagastrond, see you NES!

Website is Missing Some Stuff

My membership with the host of my website ran out on July 20th, so at the minute there's a limit on the number of projects I can have on it. you can still view it and the work I have up on it but there's a few bits and pieces missing too such as my CV, Publications and Other Experience. When I get home to Ireland I'll hopefully get it sorted out.

For now though you can view what's on my site at  http://pbyrne.ie/

July in Iceland

July was a bit quiet. Spent a lot of time in the studio, I did get to see another town though, Saudarkrokar, it's about an hour East of Skagastrond, at the base of and on the other side of the peninsula. I have 5 paintings on the go along with a couple of small collage style pieces. We had the pot luck about 2 weeks ago now I think and today we had another open house. This months Open House took us to a few location around town because the work was installation/performance based in spaces outside the studio. There was a great turnout for it and thankfully I got very positive feedback on what work I've done so far. I'm hoping to get another 1 or 2 paintings fairly under way between now and the time my stay ends.

On Tuesday the July artists gradually started leaving Skagastrond. Next week the August artists start arriving and I start my final month of the residency.

June in Iceland

The first month of my 3 month stay in Iceland is just about over and artists have been drifting away over the last week. As for the work it's gone fairly well. Because most of the other artists have only had 1 month to work I think they worked at a faster pace than I did. I spent the first 3 weeks of the residency building up material and tying out a few bits and pieces to see how the painting might work out. The first week was mostly made up of wandering around the surrounding area photographing and getting to know the place and sketchbook work, the middle 2 weeks I had started painting just small quick studies although there was one of them that I probably spent too much time on but during the third week I had started a piece that I intend to work towards exhibition. I still have 2 months left but I'm not so sure that I will get too much finished up completely. I don't think I want to get them finished before I leave. I think I'd rather work on them at home, back in Ireland because I feel that if I was to get them all completed before the end of the residency it might be too abrupt and it would be almost a cut off point with the residency simply being something I did and moving straight on to the next step.

The work itself I think has gone back to the roots of my original concept of playing with scale. I think over the course of the last few years my work had become more and more about the paint as a medium which isn't a bad thing but I feel that what I'm working on at the minute is closer to the theme while taking on a new vein of life and in some form of surrealism. It's been quite some time since I worked with acrylic paint too which has threw up a few issues that I had to work through, the obvious one being the shorter drying time in comparison to oil paint. I found the studies that were done earlier in the month were great testers for achieving the desired effects I was looking for when working on the pieces that are possibly going for exhibition. There were advantages to using acrylic too of course, the drying time being one of them and the other being that I didn't need to prime the canvas before working on it.

I haven't a set number of pieces I'd like to be working on while I'm here but I would like to go home with 5 canvas fairly under way.

Spákonufell and Summer Solstice

On Wednesday night 6 of us set out to climb Spakonufell for the Summer Solstice. This time we took the northern route which is said to be the easiest way up but it was still tough going. The beginning and the end were probably the toughest sections there's a bit in the middle where we were working our way around the mountain and so the trail was mostly level enough. The terrain varies a lot going up, grass, bog, soft mossy areas, loose clay and rock and even though it's summer there were still patches of snow. Towards the end there's a very steep incline where your almost climbing on your hands as well. We took several break on the way up which were badly needed.

When we got to the top though, it was well worth it, the view goes for miles and the light was incredible from the low sun. We got to the top in a little over 2 hours I think and there we found a treasure chest containing a book signed by everyone who climbed the mountain and a stone with a viking rune on it.

Open House and the American Ambassador

Today was Open House from 12:30 to 2:30, allowing the locals to drop by and see what we've been working on in the studio.

We also had a visit from the American Ambassador, Luis E. Arreaga