‘WHISPERS FROM A CHURCH FIELD’ – A tribute to the ancestral memory of our parish field in Donabate, before development. -May 2025

‘WHISPERS FROM A CHURCH FIELD’

A tribute to the ancestral memory of our parish field in Donabate, before development.

As a local artist who has been painting professionally for the last 25 years, I feel a duty to record our local landscape and historical heritage.
I have always been fascinated by our ancestral memory in the landscape. Last year, I studied the field in drawings and photography.
With this painting series I am attempting to convey the ancestral memories of this field before development, with both pastoral and expressive paintings
With the help of the archaeology team digging in our field, I was kindly provided with the soil tailings from their dig.
I ground and sterilised the soil and have added it to my paintings. Some small gesture to contain the field in pigment and expression.

My painting career has always been about timelessness, connectedness and continuity.
– Robert Shaw May 2025

Before and after images. St Patrick’s, Church of Ireland, Turvey rd, Donabate.

THE PAINTINGS