The Feeling of Place is the fourth and final show in the Oughterard Courthouse Art Programme’s summer series and it will showcase the work of Galway Artists Hilary Morley and Fiona Cawley.

The exhibition will be opened by basket-maker and artist Joe Hogan this Friday, July 28, from 7-9pm in the town’s Courthouse Gallery.

Hilary and Fiona graduated from art college together and since then they have exhibited widely, separately and with other groups, but this is their first joint show.

Both women’s art is rooted in place.

Fiona is a painter who works in acrylic and oil. She allows paint to dictate her work and creates emotional responses to her surroundings through imagined and abstracted depictions.

Fiona applies paint in thick and thin coats, using expressive brushstrokes and favourite colours as she focuses on the physicality of her materials. Sometimes her scenes depict imagined scenarios in imagined landscapes. She favours motifs such as a lone building, a figure and/or animal, usually painted from memory with no planned or preliminary work.

Her themes highlight rural isolation and the effect of climate change on the places around her.

Hilary Morley is a mixed-media artist who also works in charcoal. Living in the suburbs of Galway City, she is interested in themes that relate to endangered landscapes and heritage, and she is also fascinated by encounters with the sea.

Hilary’s tools include willow charcoal, as well as a wide array of erasers, brushes, sponges and homemade tools. Her largescale works allow her to be dramatic in terms of representation and mark-making. Over the years, she has worked with many craftspeople and those experiences have influenced her hugely.

The Feeling of Place will run from this Friday evening until Sunday, August 6, in Oughterard.  It’s open to the public Monday to Saturday from 10am-5pm and Sundays from 12-5pm.  All are welcome.

Little Shed at Tonabrudky by Hilarly Morley.