Biography
Paul McCloskey was born in Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, Ireland. But is now living and working in Gorey Co. Wexford. Paul attended the National College of Art and Design (N.C.A.D) Dublin from 1981 and graduated in 1986. Paul also attended De Montfort University UK and was awarded a Masters Degree in Fine art painting (MFA). Paul is a professional member of ‘visual artists Ireland’
My most recent series of paintings ‘Awakenings Reloaded and 3d’ building on my previous series ‘Awakenings’ is also inspired by the landscape, what we perceive as everyday and perhaps ordinary, the places we merely glance at without allowing ourselves to get lost in the breathtaking creation and beauty that surrounds us. This visual influence is determined by the surrounding landscape of my environment. But its intention is primarily as a catalyst in expressing divinity and is therefore secondary to this expression, with the primary purpose being process, allowing and presence.
The varied and stunning Irish landscape, coupled with our unsettled weather and therefore often fleeting and mottled light, inspires me greatly. Often a view will change or an area will be illuminated by a simple break in the clouds, highlighting as if a shimmering treasure or jewel, a corner of a field, the side of some rocky cliff or the dynamic sweeping curves of a valley reminding us that we are an integral part of and connected to a whole. Effectively, this encourages us to see and, most importantly, feel its beauty and spirit and therefore reconnect to this vital part of us.
In places, sky and earth are as one, evoking the sense of personal growth, the sense of awakening to the beauty, divinity and perfection, to the divine order within all things. This suggestion of heaven and earth in constant struggle, merging yet separable, solid yet amorphous all suggest the dichotomy of the spiritual, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, the struggle within, between the conditioned self (ego) and the divine/spiritual self.
