a new commissioned piece/sold

"Paled Pearls and Rubies Red"
Cornelia O'Donovan
100x100cm
Mixed media on canvas

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This month I am showing with Josie Eastwood Fine Art, Hampshire,
SPRING SHOW MAY 2013 Friday May 17th - Saturday May 25th, 2013

(Josie Eastwood has worked within the Art World for over 20 years. Having graduated with a Degree in Fine Art, Josie commissioned original artwork for a Corporate Art Company, Project Art, before moving on to work in the British Paintings Department at Sotheby's. This was followed by three years running a contemporary art gallery in Central London. For the past 15 years Josie Eastwood Fine Art has been based in Hampshire, just outside Winchester)

Title: "And The Green Grass Is Growing All Over They"
150 X 120 cm
Oil and acrylic on canvas

A little Valentines gift from my shop for all my blog readers. Till the end of this month if you enter the code FEB2013 at the checkout in my shop it will deduct 15% from the total price, including free shipping to the whole of the UK and reduced rates to the rest of the world!
Please find the link on the right hand side under the links list.

"Beware Of False Lambkin" 80x80cm Acrylic on canvas

The Islands Across the Sea

Claire Partington & Cornelia O’Donovan

6 February – 9 March 2013

Opening Reception: Wednesday 6 February, 6:30 – 8:30

Register for Preview of Works (available Tuesday 5 February)

A long time ago, before the Age of Reason, the world was explained through stories and imagination. People became animals; animals became spirits; good deeds were rewarded; naughty children were imprisoned, eaten, or worse. And while we may believe ourselves long removed from such fantasies, old narratives still have the ability to resonate deeply within us. The Islands Across the Sea is an exhibition bringing together two artists who explore the enduring potency of myth and folklore, drawing on old tales and historical figures from the British Isles to show how they still hold powerful sway over our imagination.

With her new series of earthenware figures, Claire Partington presents us with a hedonistic royal court full of dazzling, vice-addled characters drawn from a variety of historical and mythical sources. Bluebeard appears as a bulldozing Henry VIII, laying down the law to his knife-wielding wife, with Love and Hate tattooed across his knuckles. The Lion and the Unicorn, the emblems of the Union of England and Scotland, become a pair of Tudor boxers itching for a fight, the unicorn beckoning the lion on with a provocative index finger. Velazquez’s scowling Mariana of Austria transforms into Goldilocks, dressed in a broad elaborate mantua and with an arrogant scowl across her face, in line with the ugly old woman the character was in the original British version of the tale. And Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, appears dressed in her coronation robes, with a pregnant bump protruding from beneath. All have subtle references to 21st century culture embedded into them, creating a body of work that combines history, humour, imagination and technical virtuosity.

Cornelia O’Donovan plays with old folklore and poetry, but in a loose and dreamlike way. She draws particularly on tales native to the British Isles, and especially Celtic poetry and myth – from the tale of Prince Llewellyn’s grief at the sacrifice of his greyhound Gellert being, to the figurative ballads of Ellen O’Leary and lines from WB Yeats. Her paintings are flat, stripped of all perspective or realism, their surfaces hazy and meandering like an old tale retold a thousand times. Roughly rendered yet delicately arranged, she creates patterned compositions reminiscent of old tapestries into which she plants naïve pre-Modern motifs. Outlines of old figures, ancient heralds, esoteric herbs and familiar animals all appear like inherited objects worn smooth by the touch of innumerable hands. They retain the homespun quality of medieval rustic artworks, flowing across the canvas like a stroll through a country garden.

Together these two artists describe the magic of storytelling through objects rather than words. Ideas and images appear that echo through our cultural history, changing shape and context, and yet somehow retaining the same power to fascinate, to frighten, to beguile and entertain.

Paper Hare Plate, Gouache and Pencil on handmade Kahdi Cotton Rag Paper, 30cm approx
Beautiful Hnadmade paper, the texture is rough and the so the paint sinks in giving a rich surface, almost like a woven material.

The Hare's Dream
Chorus:
To my hark, tally ho!
Hark over yon brow
She's over, cry the huntsmen
See yonder she'll go

On the twentieth of January and in the seventieth year
The morning being beautiful, charming, bright and clear
I being disturbed by dreams as I lay in my den
I dreamed of heathery mountain, high rock and low glen

As I sat in my form for to view the plains round
I being trembling and shaking for fear of the hounds
And seeing no danger appearing to me
I quickly walked up to the top of the Sligue

They hunted me up and they hunted me down
At the loop of the burn they did me surround
When up come the huntsman to end all the strife
He says, Leave the hare down and give her play for her life

Bad luck to all sportsmen, to Bowman and Ringwood
They sprinkled the plain with my innocent blood
They let Reynard go free, that cunning old fox
That ate up all the chickens, fat hens and game cocks

Yes now I'm for dying but I know not the crime
To the value of sixpence I ne'er wronged mankind
I never was given to rob or to steal
All the harm that I ever done was crop the heads of green kale

Id like to show you these works attached, they are 42x62cm and part of a monochrome series which I'm working with charcoal on heavy water colour paper, it has a lovely ghostly other worldly feel to it which I'm really enjoying, I have added them to my shop, I like how minimal the "ingredients" to making these works are, just a single conte colour would look lovely too, maybe sepia and an inky blue.

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I met with one of the most extraordinary phenomena that I ever saw, or heard of:- Mr Sellers has in his yard a large Newfoundland dog, and an old Raven. They have fallen deeply in lovewith each other, and desire never to be apart. The bird has learned the bark of the dog, so that few can distinguish them. She is inconsolable when he goes out; and, if he stays out a day or two, she will get up all the bones and scraps she can, and hoard them up for him till he comes back.

http://www.catharinemiller.com/Im very pleased to say there is a selection of my prints with Catharine Miller at Hollywood Road Gallery in Chelsea, South West London. They will be online early next year but if you happen to be near there then they are nestling in their browsers with lots of beautiful prints.

Holding little stones in their claws to ward off sleep

Acrylic on canvas

100 x 120cm

£2,700SOLD

The Show has now opened in Wales at the art shop and chapel, This is one of the paintings I am showing, which has now sold.

I am also very pleased to say that the Shop Floor Project are now selling my prints in amongst their other wonderful things birds, ceramics, handmade textiles...to many lovely things, it has been described as "one of the most beautiful sites around" ,please click the link to take you there the shop floor project

"A Small Victory"( detail)

Etching, edition of 12,

Oil and hand coloured gouache,

570 x 580 mm

New Work, Getting ready for a new show in Wales at the Art Shop. The exhibition is called "Where The Wonderful Happens" and runs from the 3rd Nov to 24th of December. This painting is titled " Yet All Things Must Die" Acrylic on canvas 100 x 120cm
£2700.00

A New Series of screenprints, for Christmas 2012. Adapted from my plate drawings for "Imaginary Banquet" to a limited edition of 20 prints, there are 4 colourways and 20 of each in the edition. They are silkscreened on Fabriano 300 gsm paper with one deckled edge, paper size 35 x 50 cm

The prints are being exhibited at the Edinburgh Contempory Craft Centre for their Christmas Show "Rare" which runs from the 15th of November till Christmas Eve.

There are currently a few of each for sale in my shop, please click the link to the right hand side for pricing and more information.