Denise Hussey

Denise Hussey is an Irish artist from Dublin but currently painting from a studio situated on a farm in Delgany, Co. Wicklow. Her work is inspired by that which surrounds her during a period of work and so one might conclude that this accounts for the dynamic and versatile aspects of her art.

“The finished products of a series or project emerge as a reflection of a relationship between myself and my environment during different periods of my life. It is about how I feel in the context of my surroundings at a given time. On a residency last year in Krems, Austria, I was very lonely and my studio was facing a high security prison. My work in barbed wire and my preoccupation with clocks and time related directly to this feeling of isolation . On another residency in Westport where I went to paint scenery I found myself totally absorbed by the millions of sheep. I tend to steer away from a global perspective or the panoramic views of landscape and scenery and focus on telling the story of the small and innocuous detail, blowing it up into a story of its own. I have spent the last year working on a sheep farm, I was there when the lambs were born which inspired a lot of work about the relationship between the mother and child. It also resonates my own role as a mother. The barber shop series relates to the week the sheep were sheared. Driving to Dungarven last year I was stopped three times to wait for cattle to cross the road – they were all black and white. Recently my work has been inspired by herds of black and white cows.”