Geraldine Folan … makes you go ‘Wow!’

By Lynda Cookson, Feature Article in Galway Now, April 2007.

A little worried that my car door would act like a very efficient sail in the wind when I opened it; and rather reluctant to let the driving rain soak my laptop bag; I hurtled out of the car and skidded into Geraldine Folan’s house overlooking the sea in Bearna on a weather-dominated early December morning. Fresh homemade mince pies and hot coffee awaited me at the big wooden table in her warm kitchen.

Born and reared in Salthill, Geraldine says she had a lovely childhood. ‘I’ve walked Salthill promenade forever - I was wheeled down it, have skated down it, walked down it while courting, wheeled my own babies down it, and I walk it regularly now!’  With the huge sky over Galway Bay it’s not surprising that the sea and sky are the main feature of Geraldine’s paintings. In her own words: ‘My paintings are a response to the distinctive climate of the West of Ireland. I am exploring the rapidly changing effects of weather and light. Watching a stormy sea fills me with excitement, fear, and most of all respect. I have seen the effects of the sea on the landscape after a storm; how it makes childs play of our attempts to harness and control it. The effect of the weather and sea on the landscape and vegetation along the coast fascinates me so the emphasis in my paintings is on the turbulence in the sea, the sky, and the expanse of open space and distant horizons. My paintings are the result of a process of observation and analysis; I use sketches, watercolour studies and photography to record the subject and my aim is to develop the painting until I feel it captures the exhilaration I originally felt when viewing the scene for the first time.’

Enda, Geraldine’s husband, gave her a homemade easel and set of oil paints as a first wedding anniversary present. She had been a pupil in the first class of art for her Junior Cert. but there was a lack of art teachers for her Leaving Cert. As soon as she left school she worked by day in a pharmacy and took night classes in art, doing a different course each year. Even when the first of her six children arrived she went to night classes with Philip Robinson, where her first painting was a copy of a Paul Henry. She set aside a room in the house as her studio but had to move her paints out to the garage when the twins, the last of her brood, arrived and needed the room. It was about this time that she sold her first paintings - ‘I sold five paintings and it gave me a real boost!’

In 1993, after more night classes, Geraldine decided to sign up for a part-time diploma course at GMIT. Three years into the course, with classes only one day a week, she began to feel frustrated. The children were all at school so she decided to go full time – and finished her diploma with honours in 1998. During the second year of the course she was required to choose a theme to work with and asked her lecturer, Hugh McCormack, for a little guidance. He responded: ‘Think of what makes you go Wow!’  She immediately thought of skies, so that was it. She continued: ‘Having to talk and explain why I chose that theme made me think hard about what I was doing. I realised I had been reared to look out at the sea and sky, so really my parameters were just that – sea and sky. Wherever I am I paint my surroundings, including trees, which are also a love of mine.’

A two-year stint helping the ever-supportive Enda set up his Computer Troubleshooters business has been the only major interruption in her painting career and she’s had terrific support from her sisters and brother – Seamus, Maura, Carol and Toni, creative people in their own right. ‘I got back to full time painting last year and again, Enda is my pillar of support. Give me a day in my studio and I’m in heaven. Enda has converted the garage into a studio for me and it’s wonderful to have my own key to my own room in the house!’

Geraldine bounced around her studio, moving from book shelves to paints table to paintings to her long glass palette-table on wheels (which she designed herself) and back to the five-canvas painting she is doing of Salthill Promenade, talking about her techniques: ‘I work with oils on canvas and block the painting in first, building it up with layers of glazing. I use both the palette knife and brushes and keep working at it until it talks back to me – until I get something coming back from it to me and that’s when I know to stop.’

She was on a roll, happy to talk about her process of creativity – ‘I would leave a painting hanging at intervals all through the painting of it, sometimes in the hall, and look at it over a period of days and then bring it back out if it’s necessary. I aim to be a little more abstract, and to loosen up, although my painting is fairly traditional in one way. I like to have an image rather than to go totally abstract - or at least a suggestion of an image. Skies can encompass both. The whole thing is try to capture the feeling of power and drama of the sea. I am in awe of the sea and what I love about it is the power of the movement and the way the waves crash. My landscapes are often influenced and shaped by the sea.

While painting, my mind is usually in a place I don’t know because I’m so into the painting. I’m not even aware of anything else. I can be three hours painting and think just an hour has passed; talking to myself out loud a lot; music on; I might be humming to the music and moving back and forth constantly. I never paint sitting down. I’m quite physical, using fingers, cloth, anythin…, the end of the brush, whatever is instinctive at the time.

I’m doing people now, which I never did in my life before. My sisters will tell you.. when I was a child I drew on everything that I could lay my hands on and I always drew stick people going about their daily lives – and now I have come around to doing people again but they are now on the Prom and they are with my big skies. It just occurred to me how it has all come around.

I actually enjoy commissions. I get a kind of a buzz from listening to what somebody would like and trying to achieve what they want. It’s usually based on work I’ve done already and based on their surroundings or memories. There’s a great sense of satisfaction when I achieve what somebody wants.’

Geraldine’s work can be found in Kenny’s Gallery (Galway), Art Essence Gallery (Galway) and from April 9th 2007, "Atlantic Edge" is exhibiting in Kenny’s Gallery (Woollen Mills) in Lahinch, Co. Clare.