About

Dominic Daly is a Cork man married to a Tipperary woman, & to all things Tipperary.

His work can be found in private hands throughout the country. As a student in Cork in the 70s, he painted, did printmaking, and sculpture (stone-carving even) – there is a pair of  neo-classical style busts he made, portraying Michael & Eileen Fleming, to be found in the foyer of Flemings Restaurant in Cork.

An art teacher as well as a practicing artist, Dominic returned to academic life in 2001, studying Art History and Italian at UCC.  It was when on a language study-trip in Italy, that his need to paint asserted itself so strongly that he began to try to devote himself to it more fully, resulting in a successful exhibition at the Courtyard Gallery, Midleton.

Dominic has exhibited in Australia and New York, Waterford and West Cork as well as occasions in his native city.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

“When I enrolled in the School of Art  in Cork ( The Crawford), I had a facility for drawing, and was acquainted with reproductions of  works by some of the Great Artists, and the inner lives of Michelangelo and Vincent Van Gogh, courtesy of Irving Stone’s blockbuster historic novels. Although this was the most sustained period of engagement with the visual arts that I was to enjoy, I left the school with little notion of the reality of a painter’s life. As I saw my classmates slip into the sinecures that were opening in Community Schools, or embarking on adventures in theatre design or commercial graphics, I still had no clear view of where I wanted to start. After a stint on a building-site, I shrugged off the patronage of loving parents for what I knew to be the infinite potential of life with my wife Brigid, whom I had met in the School of Art and married in 1975.

On a hunt for a specific negative, searching through boxes of photo packets I found – besides the usual Christmases, Holidays, Birthdays, First Communions and other family events – loads and loads just of places; with trees, castles, parts of Cork or Tipperary, Dublin, Waterford, Florence or others; places to which I had returned and which I had photographed. For example there were 7 or 8 or more of the tree and holy-well (which is situated near Loughrea) and its environs! One was taken from the river bed where the stream flowed in, looking up to the source beneath the massive Ash-tree. Another was of the whole tree almost, from a different viewpoint to that used for the painting. Then there were at least 4, all from the same spot, but close-by, so that the whole thing wouldn’t fit in the frame and they’d have to be joined together, assembled like a puzzle.

There were at least three dozen, taken on maybe ten different occasions, of the river Lee, looking East, at dawn, toward Glanmire; or showing ships, at the various docks in the harbour, and the Quayside buildings and city skyline. Then there were the Burren ones, the Rock of Cashel, St Finbarr’s Cathedral, Cork, and hundreds of miscellaneous spots whose charm or atmosphere captured my imagination. These were places where I had stood or sat drawing or painting for some time, but not long enough. The place had just begun to yield its magic.

Then life would move on, I‘d leave and not be back again, maybe for years, or simply become so engaged in some other pursuit (teaching, or doing a commission, training course or study) that the opportunity wouldn’t arise again. Sometimes there was a particular seasonal aspect to a place and  I‘d try to remember to get back there at the same time the next year. And the frustration, in Spingtime say, when I’d wish the weather’d hold for a few days, and it might, but not till the weekend, or ‘til a day when I’d be free to go back and continue.

My paintings and drawings (gli pitturi) often share this sense of incompleteness; they were intended as initial studies, models, as artists have used always, to try out an idea and see/ show how the greater work might look, on a larger, more serious scale. This is why my last exhibition was called ‘Sketches & Modelli.‘”