23-P-022 – Emily McCormack
Emily McCormack owns an art school dedicated to oil painting and especially for beginners in Co. Meath.
Up until 2018, she had a well established career in civil engineering dispute resolution. However, while doing a Masters in Dispute Resolution in Kings College, London she was reintroduced to her young artistic self, having not painted since her Junior Cert when you were supposed to be planning for a real job, she found herself being drawn into London’s Galleries and every Friday night drawing in the National Portrait Gallery. So, while sketching Seamus Heaney’s portrait she made a promise to herself to take a risk on herself. A year later, and a diploma in oil painting under her belt she handed in her notice and established her studio and gallery providing oil painting workshops and original oil paintings from her studio, on-line store and her Sunday spot on Dublin’s Merrion Square Art Exhibition.
She has exhibited within Ireland and the UK and has successfully established an Irish, UK and American client base. Recently her work, studio and gardens featured on Nationwide and two paintings from her Old Ireland Series ‘Ring a Ring a Rosie’ and ‘The Famine’ were included in a published book capturing aspects of Irish Life. She also publishes monthly a newsletter and online art blog.
Emily paints a wide variety of subjects including seascapes, floral, equine and still life and recently has been concentrating on extending her colour palette, subject matter and texturisation of paint, painting in series rather than one offs.
As a prompt for this sketchbook I used a photo sent to me, which I have included in the back of the book of two builders during lunchtime scrolling their phones rather than having a chat.
Themes in this sketchbook include how social media has affected our daily lives, and the impact scrolling has on our time as creatives. So, I used famous works which I sketched and adapted to tell the story. I used the famous works as it might also introduce the public to more art from the past.