Great interest in exhibition by Mayo visual artist Tracy Sweeney

An exhibition by accomplished Mayo visual artist Tracy Sweeney remains in display at the Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, until Saturday, June 28.

The exhibition has been receiving wonderful local reaction, such is the high quality of Tracy's work.

Lovers of art are encouraged to view her range of fine work while the exhibition is still open to the public.

In an interview with The Gloss magazine last year, she explained her artistic style.

"I would say it is experimental mixed-media.

"With this style of painting, spontaneity is key, the 'happy accident' is hugely important.

"I find pleasure in the experimental nature of mixed media combinations and thrive on unfamiliarity when painting.

"My starting point is a body of photographs I’ve captured; rusted boats, layers of paint that have peeled over time; industry and graffiti; or the layers of history revealed through the exterior of an old ruin."

In promoting the opening of her Castlebar exhibition, she stated that in order to build the layers of surface in her paintings, she forgets to be an artist.

Tracy elaborated: "I abandon brushes and use carpenter’s tools, scrapers, chisels, grout and floor brushes.

"My mind dwells on concrete walls, metal and faded posters; the remnants of a party under a public bridge or a kid’s brazen scrawl on a public wall.

"As a consequence, the construction of each painting develops using destructive techniques.

"Surfaces are assembled layer by layer, then dismantled, creating planes of unintended colour and shape relationship.

"My technique renders the familiar outline into abstraction; a breakdown of forms.

"The quiet segments within some works allows the mind to rest and wander into the chaos of an adjacent texture.

"Each painting feels like it extends beyond the four sides of its frame. The viewer should be immersed in that possibility; the possibility of ‘reality’.

"It frustrates yet excites me to make pieces in this frenetic manner. Every accident enthrals me.

"My paintings have taken on their own abstract expressionistic language. Each piece must be brought to the brink of uselessness before I can pull it back to make it ‘work’.

"All rules are broken. This frustration, excitement and challenge are integral to each composition."