About Nuala Herron
Nuala Herron was born and raised in the city of Derry (Northern Ireland). She graduated in Fine Art from the University of Ulster in 2004 and won the John Turner Bursary Award for Figurative Painting in the same year.
Working largely in oils, Herron draws inspiration from the minutiae of daily life, as observed in the city of her birth and the places she has travelled to. While 'the figure' is always central to her paintings, it is often as much through absence as presence. The cinematic quality of the work derives from the technique of filming subjects prior to painting, mostly during what the artist calls 'in-between' moments. The translation from one medium to another creates an unsettling feeling, approaching voyeurism.
Herron is interested in how domesticity plays out in the urban world, often behind closed doors or peeling facades. The work is largely the result of residencies in Sicily and New York; the latter awarded by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland in 2007. The physical dilapidation of many of the settings serves to heighten the significance of the human element, the more so for their abandonment. The paintings have their genesis in a large body of photographs through which Herron seeks to assimilate the frailty of beauty in ruin.
Text by Máire Cox, Critic and Biographer, March 2010
www.nualaherron.com
http://nualapaintings.tumblr.com/
Working largely in oils, Herron draws inspiration from the minutiae of daily life, as observed in the city of her birth and the places she has travelled to. While 'the figure' is always central to her paintings, it is often as much through absence as presence. The cinematic quality of the work derives from the technique of filming subjects prior to painting, mostly during what the artist calls 'in-between' moments. The translation from one medium to another creates an unsettling feeling, approaching voyeurism.
Herron is interested in how domesticity plays out in the urban world, often behind closed doors or peeling facades. The work is largely the result of residencies in Sicily and New York; the latter awarded by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland in 2007. The physical dilapidation of many of the settings serves to heighten the significance of the human element, the more so for their abandonment. The paintings have their genesis in a large body of photographs through which Herron seeks to assimilate the frailty of beauty in ruin.
Text by Máire Cox, Critic and Biographer, March 2010
www.nualaherron.com
http://nualapaintings.tumblr.com/
