McCloskey’s most recent series of paintings ‘Awakenings Reloaded’ builds on his previous series ‘Awakenings (The Alpha)’ 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 his 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 him 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 areas, 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  and the divine/spiritual self.

www.paulmccloskeyart.com  Paul McCloskey was born in Co. Monaghan, Ireland and is now living and working in Co. Wexford. Paul attended the National College of Art and Design (N.C.A.D) Dublin and received a Masters Degree in Fine art painting (MFA) from De Montfort University UK. He is a professional member of ‘visual artists Ireland’.   Paul has exhibited extensively in Ireland, Dublin, Wexford, Monaghan and Galway as well as the England, Wales, New York and Italy, his work is in several collections throughout Ireland.