Having lived in Dublin, London, New York and LA, Charmain Fitzgerald is inspired by the unusual quirkes and nuances of her past and present surroundings and their accompanying inhabitants. She chooses oil or acrylic as her medium and her paintings are figurative and realist/surrealist, using representational form to create a sense of otherness, not detached from everyday things.

Forgoing the education route due to so much moving around, Charmain has been taking classes under established artists for the past few years, and currently works from her home in north Dublin. She is making the transition from concentrating on portrait work over to encompassing unsettling interiors and still life where your eye is caught more so by the items that should not really be there.

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Therese Mc Allister is an Irish artist who studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin from 1972-74. After NCAD, Therese worked as a fashion illustrator, and display artist in Dublin before deciding to move to Italy in the mid 1970's.

On her arrival in Florence, she met Pietro Annigoni (renowned for his portraits of the British Royal Family) who encouraged her to enroll at the Studio Simi. Here, under the tutelage of Nerina Simi, she studied the techniques of drawing and painting in the classical tradition.

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At the age of 31 Jay Walker returned to college studying Art and Design. It was here that abstract expressionism was to have a major influence; Jackson Pollock being the main inspirational figure. Upon leaving college he moved to Dublin, found a studio in the Docklands area and carried on painting, developing his work and absorbing the surroundings.

Jay now works from a studio in Co Carlow, at the foot of Mount Leinster. His more recent work has moved further from abstraction toward a style of impressionism; recording the change and development which is sweeping the cities throughout Ireland and in contrast the subdued tranquility of coastal and country life.

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Francis Kennedy works from a small studio at his home in Athenry, in the west of Ireland. "I own paint brushes and I use them".

He has a great love of music, having played in a number of bands in a former life and much of his work revolves around musicians and recitals.

Francis' art hangs on the walls of some famous names, like Sharon Corr, Brendan Shine, and the soprano Deirdre Shannon-Gilsenan, as well as in the offices of Coffey Construction and Galway Bay FM.

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Conor Walton was born in Dublin in 1970, and studied in the National College of Art and Design, from which he graduated in 1993 with a Joint Honours Degree in the History of Art and Fine Art (Painting). He received a special commendation and prize for his thesis, 'Abstraction: A Discourse on Language and Painting'.

After reading for an MA in Art History and Theory at the University of Essex, which he was awarded with distinction in 1995 (dissertation subject: 'The Battle of the Ancients and the Moderns'), he spent some time in Florence studying painting and old master techniques with Charles Cecil. He returned to Dublin in 1996, and had his first solo exhibition there in 1999.

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