Having relocated from Belfast city to a farm on the Waterford/Kilkenny/Tipperary border, artist Una O’Grady is looking forward to returning for her latest exhibition of captured farming moments.
Her large-scale contemporary works will be on show at Belfast’s Canvas Gallery from Thursday, April 4, to Saturday, April 13.
While in the past Una regarded herself as a “total city girl”, her mother’s farming background in the village of Swatragh, south Derry, was a big influence.
She met her partner John while living in Australia and the couple decided to return to his family farm in Co. Waterford. Soon her supersized oil paintings, which previously focused on north Belfast, began to reflect what she was seeing through the hedges.
Farm studio
With two young daughters, painting in a studio at the family farm where the couple built a house offers an enriching lifestyle, with many of the idyllic scenes on her doorstep captured.
Una, who studied fine art at the University of Ulster, uses her fingers and a palette knife to scrape; dig out; layer; plaster on and scrape off the paint when creating her works. She has been praised for approaching her subject matter with sensitivity, insight and vigour.
The farming community will appreciate Una’s captured moments such as the ‘wobble’ and apprehensive eyes of a week-old calf in ‘Getting Up To Face The World’ to the sense of bulk but curiosity of ‘Bull Calf 2019′.
The individual personalities and idiosyncratic movements and poses of these wonderful creatures will be on show.
Gallery manager Louise Tweed said: “Una’s work is fantastically versatile. We have placed pieces in everything from Victorian restoration homes to the modern sleek style home, from the inner city apartments to rural country homes.”
Una’s oil paintings also feature in commercial spaces including Boyne Dental surgery, Navan.
“As soon as my two children hop on the school bus, it’s just me and the paints and of course my trusty dog Oggie.
“He can be spotted looking at my paintings (above) – the canine among the bovine, checking out my latest creations. Hopefully, he is giving his own thumbs up with that wagging tail,” said Una.
She is exhibiting at Canvas Gallery’s ‘Homeland’ with landscape artist Stef Noble.
All work is available to view on the gallery website: www.canvasgalleries.com. Alternatively, you can contact Louise at the gallery on: 0044-2890222727.
More information is also available at: www.unaogradypaintings.com; or Una O’Grady Paintings on Facebook.