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2013-05-20T10:38:00.001+01:00

a new commissioned piece/sold

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

*****
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)

2013-02-11T11:05:00.001Z

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.

2013-02-05T14:28:00.003Z

"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.

2013-02-05T14:26:00.000Z

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

2013-02-04T21:09:00.000Z

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.

******************

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.

2012-11-28T11:19:00.001Z

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.

2012-11-14T00:03:00.001Z

Holding little stones in their claws to ward off sleep

Acrylic on canvas

100 x 120cm

~~£2,700~~SOLD

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

2012-10-23T11:31:00.001+01:00

"A Small Victory"( detail)

Etching, edition of 12,

Oil and hand coloured gouache,

570 x 580 mm

2012-10-20T18:10:00.001+01:00

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

2012-10-17T11:52:00.001+01:00

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.

2012-10-10T11:20:00.004+01:00

Hello Friends and Loved ones, last month I was in a show in Abergavenny to celebrate the fantastic Food Festival in Wales.

The exhibition was titled "A Theatre Of Plates" The show runs along side the Abergavenny food festival.

These are my hand drawn White Porcelain with guilding, I would like to hang a whole wall of them in my kitchen.

The exhibition is at The Art Shop Gallery from 11th September - 13th October.

Plates by Louise Brosnan, Susan Disley, Rachel Eardley, Jackie Griffin, Edla Griffiths, Cornelia O'Donovan, Philippa Robbins, Alexis Snell, Sarah Thwaites

2012-09-06T22:22:00.001+01:00

"A Jug For Crocodile Tears"
Cornelia O'Donovan
Pencil and gouache 590 x 420mm

Currently featured in Octobers 2012 Galleries Magazine and also Galleries Wales in an article called Focus on Wales, with a review of the current exhibiton next to a fantastic review on this months sculpture exhibitions titled the Age of Bronze with work by Louise Bourgeois, Terrance Coventry, and Robert Clatworthy.

"Beguiling is an adjective which could describe the Art Shop and it's exhibitions. Food is it's current theme, following Septembers Abergavenny Food Festival...The gallery's menu includes "A Dinner Set for an Imaginary Banquet" works on paper from Cornelia O'Donovan RCA and "A Theatre of Plates"artist decorated ceramics...."

2012-09-04T17:30:00.000+01:00

2012-08-30T13:17:00.001+01:00

"The Day is Gone, And All it's Sweets Are Gone"
Cornelia O'Donovan
~~£2,400.00SOLD~~

103 x 103 cm
Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas

"The Deep Twighlight Of Rest"
Cornelia O'Donovan
~~£2,400.00SOLD~~

103 x 103 cm
Oil and Mixed Media on canvas

2012-08-20T14:43:00.002+01:00

the last image, 19x19 cm watercolour and pencil on Arches aquarelle 300lb.
After the success of "Painters & Printmakers" in May earlier this year my paintings were much admired and subsequently sold everything i exhibited in the show, thankyou so much to everyone who went to Abergavenny to the beautiful Art Shop to see the show. I am busy making my next series, they will be released from my studio in November, until then i am looking at the circus and a story is slowly unfolding..

Today

2012-08-20T14:41:00.003+01:00

Work in Progress

2012-07-20T14:14:00.002+01:00

Oil on Board, 52 x 52 cm each. I havnt posted in a while...at first i thought it was awful that i didnt have wifi in my new studio, it seemed like there was something missing, the quite hum of the computer in the corner, and no scanning and printer..

It has ended up being a very good thing, I switched the radio on and started working in this wonderful, cut off from the world peace and quiet, a month or so later i started working more on originals, drawings and paintings.

I tend to make my screen printed negatives on my mac for the colour separation and registration but i didnt realize how much of my working day was taken up fiddling around with the internet and computer applications. So how about you? For some people i know it is an integral part of the work process but its ended up being a good thing the choice was taken away from me.

This picture is a from new series of paintings inspired by the theme of "circus" for a group show later in the year, i am enjoying working on this smaller scale.

Have you heard of Gifford's Circus ? It looks so wonderful, English country side at its best.

2012-06-01T11:28:00.000+01:00

Suddenly in Tembling Opal – 158 x 100cm mixed media on canvas

"Cornelia O’Donovan, who studied at the Royal College of Art and is primarily a printmaker, recently turned her attentions to painting for our current mixed show Painters & Printmakers. Her large paintings have been selling so successfully, that yesterday a series of three beautiful new canvases arrived…"

from the Art Shop's wordpress blog, if you would like to see more, please click the link.

http://theartshopandchapel.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/cornelia-odonovan-rca-new-paintings/#more-934

2012-05-30T17:02:00.004+01:00

A lovely photograph of my new painting at The Art Shop in Abergavenny, A new show opened this month, Painters And Printmakers 5TH MAY - 9TH JUNE 2012.
"The Day is Gone & All Its Sweets are Gone"
Oil & mixed media on canvas
103 x 103cm

From their site, "Recent paintings and limited editions of handmade prints by artists who regularly exhibit at our gallery and introducing some new names.

There is an overlap between painting and printmaking and the imagery of the work is very diverse - mythology, beasts and whimsical creatures, dreams, visions, metaphorical journeys and long remembered places, narratives..."

2012-04-12T20:58:00.002+01:00

A new palette for spring, ink and muted gouache, which has a luminescence and transparency that lends itself wonderfully to the dream like quality in a new series of larger works on paper. The notion of an unconcious mind, Playwright August Strindberg worked with an idea he called "dream play" to describe a narrative that did not distinguish between fantasy and reality.

This is an excerpt from a new drawing, Dream Material - pencil, Indian ink and gouache on BFK Rives 270gsm - 760 x 560mm. Although traditionally a printmaking paper for etching, engraving and silkscreen i have started to draw on it for its absorbency where i can layer ink and watercolour on top without buckling.

2012-04-12T17:09:00.003+01:00

A hand painted goose egg for Easter for the Art shop and Gallery,

from their site:

"We have filled our window with artist decorated goose eggs by illustrators, painters, jewellers, printmakers, stone-carvers and ceramic artists. Each one is unique, quirky and beautiful. Each a little piece of art to be treasured. These eggs are blown and very robust."

see their site for pieces from Louise Brosnan RCA, Sarah Thwaites, Alexis Snell, Andrea McLean, Matt Caines and myself.

Each egg is for sale and start from £35.00

2012-04-12T14:56:00.003+01:00

on my desk today, a Barbadian folk tale about a woman who is a bird, every day after she makes her husbands breakfast and he is gone she grows her wings and beak and eats crabs and flies over the lakes. Her husband has another son from a previous marriage and they start to suspect something is up because she never eats with them...

I will write the rest of the tale soon i am working through the story. I don't seem to start from the beginning and work through, i choose the main pieces of the story and work from there. And collage seems so appropriate for story telling, i move the pieces around, from scene to scene till i get the story straight, they are like little maquettes used for a play.

2012-03-08T17:21:00.008Z

Folded Artists Book, limited edition of 100 paper size 594 x 841 screen printed in water based inks. I like folding them all, then unfolding, like a map with hidden corners flattening the folds to find the way and then folding it back up again.

This is called " A hunters guide to the forest" he somehow loses his way, and separated from the other men he decides to hunt and kill some curiously beautiful birds which we come to realise, working from his description are of course parrots.

2012-02-08T10:34:00.008Z

set of three prints, soon to be available at The Old Sweet Shop.
silkscreen prints using waterbased inks.
paper size 25x17 cm
handprinted on 220gsm rosapina best quality acid free printmaking paper.
click the link to look at their lovely site full of handmade prints. the old sweet shop

2012-02-02T22:26:00.003Z

I am working on a series of smaller prints, these are three colour screen prints, paper size 6x8 inches on watercolour board, i print using non toxic waterbased inks. my positives are made from a combination of drawings and hand cut stencils.