Exhibition for the Omma Centre for Contemporary Art, Crete, October 2002 Oil Paintings and Sculptures The Granuaille theme enabled me to see in a new light landscape and places with which I have a strong connection, namely Connemara and Mayo. I could connect history, legend and the present.

Healing Art

(See also my book, 'Becoming the Tree' )

I think that Art serves several purposes. At its best it seeks to comment on what is universal, common to all, but on any level, it is a form of expression, of communication.

Through Art we can communicate with others, also with our self. It is in this respect that it can be especially healing. Sometimes my paintings are like a voice from outside which is telling me about myself.

In the practice of Art Therapy, painting, drawing and sculpture provide a means of reaching inner thoughts, beliefs and emotions, which might otherwise be inaccessible.

What happens by accident on a piece of paper often contains material of greater significance than anything, which is done intentionally. Art provides a way of finding symbols whose emotional content and deeper meaning reaches us in ways that mere signs cannot. Colour speaks, it even sings if you let it.

Shape entrances, form provides opportunities for touch and feel, accessing forgotten and neglected parts of the brain. Paintings and sculptures enhance environment. They can lift an otherwise drab room into a place of movement and meaning. There are times when just the doing can be therapeutic, other times when the doing is hard work.

The challenge is to go beyond the voice, which says that it is not good enough - that this bit or that bit is not quite 'right' - to forget judgments and expectations. There is an opportunity to forget oneself, to forget time, to become involved.

Art enables us to explore, an urge which is fundamental to every child. Forget the restrictions of adulthood, become a child, play and experiment. In painting and sculpture fantasy is allowed, (dream on, dreamer), and I can be as wild as I want. I can be kind and gentle; I can be dark, depressed, angry, and violent.

Most people can lift a brush and put on colour, but if they are not able, it is possible to paint for them, like an interpreter. When I am asked to paint a picture for someone, it seems to come as much from that person as from myself. Nothing happens in isolation.

No picture is painted without the whole history of Art behind it, and the future of Art in front of it, without the co-operation of mind and body, the conscious and the unconscious. Art makes connections, and everyone needs connections.

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