Joan Mulvihill
Joan Mulvihill
Joan Mulvihill
JOAN MULVIHILL
Contemporary Landscape Artist
ABOUT
"The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most" - John Ruskin
Contemporary landscape painter abstracting form and colour from the trees, farms and bogs of Ireland. Living in Mullingar, Co.Westmeath and painting all that I love of my land-locked life.
I spent much of the summer of 2022 in France - Nice and Paris in particular. My intention was to paint this series on my return but as with so many great intentions, Life had other plans for me. So after a painting Hiatus of 6 months from September 2022 - February 2023 its nice to be back with these paintings of sunnier days.
The Tree Family Portraits
This started with a Haiku assignment, struck by the lace like bare branches of a solitary tree standing dark against the sky on a grey day. The lace, the posing grandeur of the tree, I got thinking about classic portraits of great ladies and so it began; The Tree Family Portrait album of the special occasions, the fun, the values and with the original lace motif running through each either in the form of actual lace or stencilled lace.
drizzling day
black lace of bare branches
drip drip drip
Price Range - €900 (wood panels, large, framed), €500 (canvas, framed)
Fabric, wood and acrylic paints combined with all the coarse, gloss and iridescent medium that my heart and hand will allow. This is me throwing the kitchen sink at my love for these landscapes and the life they have provided me. No holding back, fearful of rejection, of seeming foolish or being judged. We might as well put our whole hearts out there and see what happens because some day it will be too late.
"crumpled bits of paper, filled with imperfect thought, stilted conversations, I'm afraid that's all we've got", the words of the Mike Rutherford 80's classic that inspired the name for the series.
Price Range - €800-€1100 (framed)
Where there was once a single board, a single piece of thread and two letters of favourite memories (one to each of my parents), there are now eight Memory Paintings bound by that single thread in a continuous line through each. Like the memories themselves, the thread has been cut and they are now disjointed, jumbled and hazy because time does that. I've been reading a lot about how memory works, how its not held in one part of us but fragmented across all of our senses. Is it any wonder we can lose track of them when there are so many ways in and out. These are small, mixed media paintings on old board. Part of me wants to keep them all together but to properly reflect how memories are fragmented, I know I need them to go to different homes.
Price €280
Abstract woodland acrylics/mixed media on canvas and boards.
"In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost"
- Dante, The Divine Comedy.
It was this line that prompted the first of the Lost paintings below. Portraying trees and forests as protective, playful and valued places this series of "Lost in the Wood" paintings emerged. Feeling lost can be scary but being lost can also be the start a great adventure.
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© 2020 Joan Mulvihill, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. The digital images of artwork on this website are the property of Joan Mulvihill. Any duplication or use of these images without her express permission constitutes copyright infringement.
© 2019