“All these paintings are evidence of a life lived close to brambles, trees, country roads, spring and winter air.

Sarah Walker’s art filters nature with a connoisseur’s eye, thereby giving it a fine aesthetic pedigree.”

Quote from Brian O’Doherty from “Representing Art in Ireland" published by Fenton Gallery.

My paintings look closely into the ditches and hedgerows of the area where I live and work in the Beara Peninsula. One of the key interests in my work has always been how to approach surface and detail, for example using a close up of native wild flowers in one isolated area of a painting and in other paintings pulling back to reveal the wide horizon. In some paintings I am staying quite close-up making recognisable daisies and cornflowers and different kinds of wild flowers from the area. Sometimes I’m just looking at the busyness and chaos of the tangled grass and plants.

I am interested in looking at things from a distance and looking close-up— zooming in and out of the landscape.

All that is going on in a hedgerow gives great scope for painting, even within one tiny area. If you zoom in to the landscape you don’t have to walk too far down a country track to see plenty of structure for a painting, in the ditch.