Click here to view Tethered Passage in SHOP
This striking painting captures two men in a currach, a traditional Irish handmade boat, sailing against the tide with all their worldly possessions. Their expressions are etched with determination, their grip firm on the oars as they navigate the open water. The Atlantic stretches behind them, an unforgiving force they have battled for generations. Ahead lies a vast uncertain future.
100cm x 150cm x 5cm
Click here to view ‘All Things Fall & are Built Again’ in SHOP
The oil painting ‘All Things Fall and Are Built Again’ evokes a haunting scene of post-war London, seemingly frozen in time. Muted colours of blues and ochres dominate the canvas, casting a sombre hue over the desolate landscape. As the artist, I tried to skillfully capture the aftermath of destruction with scattered remnants of buildings among the rubble. Shadows creep across the painting, deepening the sense of despair and loss. Reflecting the sentiments in WB Yeats' poem ‘Lapis Lazuli’, the painting conveys a profound message of resilience amidst devastation, offering a poignant reminder of the enduring human spirit in the face of destruction.
Oils on canvas, unframed
100cm x 70cm x 5cm
Click here to View this painting in ‘SHOP’
With poignant strokes of my paintbrush, this canvas captures a significant moment in history. Two men, weathered by the toils of life, sit stoically in a currach (a traditional tarpaulin-covered Irish boat) as it ploughs through the waters, carrying all their earthly belongings. The turbulent sea reflects the uncertainty that lies ahead as they leave behind their familiar coastal island of Inishark in the 1960’s to start anew on the mainland of Galway, after their island was besieged by continuous bad weather, resulting in drownings, illness and rural isolation.
87cm wide x 67cm high x 5cm deep, framed in white box frame
Click here to view ‘Hedge Fund’ in SHOP
Studying historical photographs of the evictions of tenant farmers in Ireland during the 1900s evoked a profound sense of empathy and inspiration in me. Old photographs depicting the ruthless practice of filling cottage windows with bracken and setting the house alight to evict tenants was the harsh reality faced by those in rural Ireland.
Oils on wood
80cm (wide) x 100cm (high) x 5cm (deep) unframed
“Flame Throwers”
Oils on canvas
60cm x 50cm x 5cm
unframed
SOLD
In 2019 Sweeney's unique, visceral works caught the attention of the Mulveys; an American family in Connecticut, who’s ancestors hailed from the abandoned cottage in the field next to Sweeney's current studio.
The Mulveys commissioned Sweeney to create a selection of paintings, to hang as part of the collection at Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, in Hamden, Connecticut.
The commission in honour of their great grandmother - Delia King - born in Straide, had emigrated to Connecticut in 1920, following in the footsteps of her twin sister. The connection between the King ancestral home, which once included the land where Sweeney’s studio now resides, seems more than coincidence. Straide is also the birthplace of Michael Davitt, founder of the Irish Land League. Sweeney's research into the theme of emigration, abandonment & exile after the 1916 rising resulted in this exhibition. See Irelands Great Hunger Museum Fairfield CT, USA
Oils on wood, 2021
80cm x 100cm x 5cm
SOLD
Oils on canvas
110cm x 170cm x 4 cm
SOLD
'Arriving' 2019
Oils on wood
43in x 32in
SOLD
- A blaze of waving handkerchiefs and caps, the ship sails into a new land, where food abounds & there is work aplenty for any person willing to try. Imagine the excitement, the nerves, the community. We can only imagine. The shapes and empty shadows in ochres & blues in this painting allude to the knowledge that not everyone made it to the other side; ghosts & dreams were part of this journey too, ingrained in our collective memory, and not at all different to todays mass-immigration, uprooting from the land beneath our feet. We become cowboys in a 'new world'. We throw caution to the wind. Hence the wild, adaptable Irishman within us all.
'Abandoned' 2019
Oils on canvas
55in x 32in
-This cottage is painted 'en plein air', it still stands in the field beside my painting studio, like time has stood still. A family of eight lived in this one space. I live in the heartland of Michael Davitts birthplace, who founded the Land League with Parnell in 1879. His fight by peaceable means to stop the evictions of tenant farmers in Ireland by English gentry & landlords, was a noble fight, later lauded by Ghandi. Time has stood still in this rural part of Ireland, the stones are overgrown with moss & ivy, the walls crumble in on themselves but for histories sake, no-one touches the stones. They bear witness to our stories, they remind us daily of the importance of what has gone before us.
'Harvest' 2019
Oils on wood
32in x 32in
-Lazy beds; the undulating ridges where the potato crop was grown are still visible in every field. The back-breaking work of tilling the land, picking stones by hand, planting row after row of potatoes. One planted enough to feed the entire large family for a year, whilst all other crops were grown to ship to England, to pay the rent for the land. Our dependance on monoculture was our downfall. These rows of potato beds map the sides of rural mountains, across the country, sometimes in the most hazardous locations.
'Burning' 2019
Oils on canvas
32in x 32in
-The sugán chair, was the traditional woven seated chair of 1840's Ireland. When the landlords came to evict tenant farmers, they pulled all the furniture from the stone floored cottages, piled them high & burned all to the ground. All belongings burned to smoke. This painting is symbolic in its colouring of vivid oranges, but its abstract, frenetic manner of paint application allows the viewer to get lost in what looks like a landscape, a horizon, some hope in the distance. Rising from the fires.
