Sinéad Ní Chionaola

Bio

Sinéad Ní Chionaola is an Irish artist who has been painting the landscape of East Cork where she has lived for the last twenty-six years. Her practice is a continuous exploration and recording of the woods, sea, and mountains that surround her. Her work has evolved with her own development as a person.

Sinéad graduated with a Distinction in a Fine Art Diploma in Painting and Printmaking from the Crawford College of Art & Design, Cork, in 1990. On graduating, she was awarded a three-month residency at the Backwater Artists Group studios.

Consequently, this focused studio time allowed her to progress her art practice and her early art career leading to awards and international residencies. These include The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada and The Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts (VCCA), USA.

Throughout the 1990s, her work was featured in a comprehensive National Touring Exhibition in Ireland, launched in the Jo Rain Gallery (now the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery). The exhibition subsequently travelled internationally to the Adelaide Fringe Festival in Australia and the Gothenburg Irish Arts Festival in Sweden.

Over the years, she has continued to develop her art practice through drawing and painting techniques, exhibiting her work regularly and teaching art.

She is currently exhibiting at the Ceiliúradh 25 art exhibition at the Joan Clancy Gallery in An Rinn, Co. Waterford.

Selected Exhibitions

Over her career, Sinéad’s work has been selected for exhibitions at national and international venues, including: Ireland: Crawford Art Gallery (Cork), Lavit Gallery (Cork), Backwater Artists Group (Cork), Sirius Arts Centre (Cobh), The Doorway Gallery (Dublin), The Lemon Street Art Gallery (Dublin), West Cork Arts Centre (Skibbereen), Municipal Gallery (Waterford), Joan Clancy Gallery (Waterford), and the Monaghan County Museum & Gallery. International: The Holy Art Gallery (London, UK), Confort Moderne (Poitiers, France), Wemyss Gallery (Sydney, Australia), Adelaide Fringe Festival (Australia), and the Gothenburg Irish Arts Festival (Sweden).

Sinéad’s paintings are held in several public and private collections, including: The Office of Public Works (OPW), Munster Technological University (MTU) Private collections across Ireland, Europe, Switzerland, America and Australia.

Artist Statement

I grew up in the coastal town of Dungarvan. Co. Waterford. Speaking Irish at home, my father was a native Irish speaker from the Ring Gaeltacht just across the bay from our home. My mother taught and still has a deep passion for the Irish language. There is a connection between the Irish language and the Irish physical landscape so many of our words for hills, shorelines, and weather are deeply sensory, almost painting a picture of the land themselves.

As a result, my art practice is rooted in my love of nature. I seek to capture the local images that surround me drawing and painting with watercolours, acrylic and dry materials En Plein Air. I use photographic references back in my studio and work primarily in acrylic on canvas or paper. I delve into the essence of a landscape through texture, colour, and light, investigating and integrating both abstract and representational elements in my work. Connection, movement and memory, a sense of presence in a moment in time, and the physicality of the paint in the studio.

My current paintings have developed to further explore representation and the use of perspective, creating depth and capturing the fall of light on the trees and the pathways.

“Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine” Just as people live in each other’s shadows, an artist’s work lives in the shadow and light of their environment.