Noelle McAlinden

Artist Statement

Originally from Maghery, on the shores of Lough Neagh, Orchard County, the close association with references to the shoreline and her father’s family business, as a market gardener, the references to the precious cargo of the past and the evolving present of childhood memories and experiences have inspired her work. Living now in Fermanagh over thirty thirty-seven years, a former student of TP Flanagan and Iconographer Sr Aloysius Mc Veigh and currently Creative Adviser, Artist, Curator and Cultural Broker/ Programmer and Arts Activist. Noelle continues to be committed to supporting arts and culture across education, community, voluntary, youth and health sectors.

Noelle’s work varies in size, scale, subject matter and treatment, from large-scale oil paintings to small mixed media pieces on canvas. The work is vibrant in colour and texture that appeal strongly to the eye with recent work consisting of an extraordinarily vivid panorama of colour, light and imagery, abstract and semi representational. The work to date has evolved from the figurative/narrative tradition. The choice of subject matter and treatment of it has evolved in a logical development from previous solo exhibitions, Waterways of the mind, Out of the Blue, Eve–oloution, Precious Cargo and Emotional Landscape.

Abstract works are inspired by experiments with colour, texture, light and semi animated marks, traces of life that somehow continue to be figurative. The paintings in oils and acrylics cover surfaces and canvasses that have been distorted, distressed, layered with texture and colour, with fragments that have been constructed and deconstructed exposing colour beneath the surface.

Inspiration is drawn from who the artist is and where she has come from and where she is now, both the physical world the artist lives in and the private world within her that carries the Precious Cargo of the past and all its diverse, dynamic and evolving happenings, the magic of gained knowledge & personal insight. An Artist who has mined deeper with age, where with a love of emotive colour, scorched canvasses emerge. Where blue tones and strong exotic tones collide. Where inspiration is sought in everything and every experience, and where the artist paints large-scale as well as small, and welcomes the happy accident.

Inspiration from the work of Hodgkin’s and Hoyland have influenced recent work. “My work has evolved, it comes from my life, my soul, experiences, memory and imagination. Shaped, nourished by events and accidental happenings, family, friendship and a sense of place.”

Inspirations

Inspiration for Noelle McAlinden’s work comes from who she is, the physical and emotional waterways and landscapes navigated virtually and metaphorically, the rhythm of poetry and music, the precious cargo carried within and the losses and gains of the fragile human condition.

Noelle is a visual artist who has mined deep, with a passionate sense of colour and who has exhibited extensively within and beyond unique gallery settings on and along waterways, throughout Ireland and Europe as well as Oklahoma and India.