Lynda Cookson Irish Art Gallery Online, Online art gallery ireland

Lynda Cookson

On a deeper level than the notions of freedom and rebellion, incorporating colour, movement and the life essence of her subject, Cookson works with what she terms the 'behind music'; she works with the masks of protection and the layers of learning people develop and build up through their lives; and she works with how they learn to live with those masks and layers; and how they achieve their wisdom.

The ‘behind music’ she refers to is all the parts of a symphony concert in their separate forms, all the patterns of sound, the individual notes, the individual instruments, the emotions elicited, the energy expended and the people involved, which unite to make the complete piece of music so beautiful, soul-reaching, acceptable and exciting to the masses of people who listen to it.

The parallel is the lives people are living, learning and sculpting to make themselves better and more wise; to make themselves more beautiful, valuable and acceptable to the society they belong in, while still coping with the energy needed to smooth out every-day stresses in meeting their challenges.

The manifestation of Cookson's philosophy can be found in the many layers of colour peeping through and giving life to her paintings. She prefers to mix colours on the canvas, allowing their purity to dictate, and is only occasionally found to mix colours on the palette before application.

Cookson says of her methods and techniques: 'True inspiration comes when I am excited by a subject to the point of sleeping badly at night and (preserve me!) wanting to get up early in the morning. I use oils, sometimes acrylics, on artist-prepared stretched linen canvas or linen-covered board, occasionally using my own handmade paper and various fabrics for texture beneath the paint. I like the surface to have a ‘tooth’. Much of my work is done with palette knives and brushes but I also use sponges, my fingers, pieces of cardboard, paper table napkins and scrunched plastic. In fact, whatever is to hand in the moment of need! My work tends to be colourist in that I build up layers of pure colour often allowing the lower layer to show through, giving movement and life to the painting.

I use my imagination, freedom of colour and stroke-movement, to bring my art to life, finding inspiration in the unexpected and in the use of ‘rebellious’ colours.

Once the painting is complete it's important for me to be impelled to look at it again and again and to feel the butterflies of pleasure in what has been created – otherwise I paint over it again!'