Lynda Cookson from the west of Ireland ran her own clinic for 5 years prior to being forced to change careers in 1992 to that of an artist and writer because of severe back pain. Lynda is a certified reflexologist, a namikoshi shiatsu therapist, an aromatherapist, and studied iridology, ayurvedic healing and acupuncture. Since changing her career she has become an accomplished artist and writer having sold works in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Namibia, the United States, Canada, France, Spain, Dominican Republic and Malaysia. Her paintings are part of permanent collections, have been auctioned, and collected throughout Ireland. Her most recent publication is a book titled Tea’n Turps published in 2009 that takes a humorous look at the lives of 12 well-established artists living and working in Ireland.

---

My home is in the depths of Connemara where the sun sets on the mountains behind me and I gaze out, over bogland hills, to the soft evening light catching the mountainsides across the valley. There are only about 300 folk living in the valley. Two Connemara ponies munch away in the field opposite our house, and they're often joined by a couple of rather bold and raucous donkeys. I'm not necessarily a landscape painter, but the tranquility and beauty of my studio surroundings gives me the creative space and inspiration to paint.

My philosophy simply put, is that I concentrate on capturing the living energy of my subject, working on creating a sense of freedom within constraint. I am conscious of the masks of protection and the layers of learning that people develop and build up through their lives, learning how to disguise their true selves and how to live comfortably with their masks and layers. Scratch the surface, delve deeper into ourselves, and we find we all have so much more inside of us than the world sees. Creatively, nothing excites me more than to look closely at a painting and be able to identify the layers of colour which have been laid down to build up the final picture.

So whether I am working on an abstract, or a contemporary horse painting, even a flower arrangement, the painting is built up with layers of mostly pure colour, sometimes mixing on the canvas and other times sitting next to each other to create a vibrancy in their pairing.

Colour, a sense of energy, and vibrancy are all very important to me.