Flora McDonnell
My Weather
– New Paintings and Drawings –
PRIVATE VIEW
6-8pm Thursday 26th November
Works can be viewed and purchased online from 8pm on Thursday 26th November
The exhibition continues until Saturday 19th December 2026
I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling.
John Constable, 1821.
This, our fifth exhibition of works by Flora McDonnell, comprises two parts. Part I is a collection of forty new plein air paintings made on the coast of Donegal and on the coast and in the glens of County Antrim, where Flora spent much of her childhood. Working outdoors, often in difficult weather, these paintings are passionate responses to places she knows well. They belong to a long tradition in Romantic landscape painting, of which Constable was supreme, and in which the attachment of a place to an artist is essential to the expressive power of their works. Flora’s use of paint reflects her love of Christopher Wood, Joan Eardley and William Nicholson.
Part II consists of recent drawings made from the imagination. Flora is a distinguished illustrator, having published ten books to date. We exhibited the original drawings for her last book, Out of a Dark Winter’s Night (Thames and Hudson, 2020), in the ill-fated March of 2020, just before the first Lockdown. Like those illustrations, the drawings in this exhibition are autobiographical works that explore personal experiences and emotions. If Flora’s landscapes descend from the tradition of Constable, her drawings are descendants of the visionary romanticism of Palmer, whose work is another of her artistic inspirations.
Earlier this year, Flora successfully completed psychoanalysis to treat extended bouts of debilitating depression. Painting and drawing have been central to her life and critical to her recovery throughout. This exhibition is a celebration of this milestone in her life, and of the sustaining nature of her art.
On April 1st this year […] we ended my analysis, 6 years later than planned […] I went on to Glenarm my homeplace & my magnetic north to paint it out & then onto to Rosbeg on the Atlantic Coast in Donegal. Painting en plein air especially in these places makes me feel more connected and alive than anything else. I don’t have to try. I just am. All the tangles fall away.
These pictures say what words can’t.
Flora McDonnell, 2026
