I’m Frances Donnelly Jung, a passionate painter who finds inspiration in nature and landscapes of Ireland.

My paintings are rooted in drawing and close observation of nature. I’m fascinated by intertwining branches and vegetation, the play of light and dark in forests and the reflected light bouncing off water.

 I take inspiration from walks along Dublin’s Royal Canal and The Phoenix park near where I live, sometimes taking a sketchbook or simply observing and contemplating the shift in light and how the forms interact. 

Memory and imagination play a large role. I’m not trying to represent what I see, but to capture it’s formal essence. There’s a Modernist sensibility at play perhaps, where line, colour and form coalesce and the painting can tilt towards abstraction. 

For me, the practice of painting in oil is a process of discovering what paint can do. In the studio I work on the floor at first so the paint can flow freely and unexpectedly. Working from above creates distance and a kind of disorientation which can have an affect on the underlying drawing and overall structure. I would usually work back into the painting on the wall. I might rotate the painting to get a different mark or perspective, remove paint and rework it, loosen and sharpen forms, slowly building the painting up over weeks or even months.  

Painting is difficult because it’s akin to walking a  tightrope, where you seek to lose yourself so the unexpected can happen, but where it’s also important to exert control and make decisions – good and bad. A successful painting for me is one that is expressive and alive with unexpected mark-making, but retains an underlying structure and cohesion that relates to the original subject matter

I am a Dublin based artist and have been practicing for over thirty years. I was born in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, and studied Fine Art at Belfast College of Art, graduating with a first-class honours degree, before completing an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London.

My work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions London, Berlin and throughout Ireland. I lived in Prague and Berlin for some years where I continued to develop my practice. Living and working abroad gave me new perspectives but also deepened my attachment to the Irish landscape and its influence on my painting.