Dana O’Regan

Inscapes II

“I am inspired by dissonance, tension, intensity, and conflict. The crashing of waves against a rocky cliff, the constant din of traffic or heavy machinery at a construction site, the resonance of the engines within the hull of a ship, conflict within music and my environment. I believe that what is often considered unpleasant is also beautiful, relevant, and true. From an early age,

I felt a deep connection to the chaos of activity around me because I recognized a similar chaos in my own life. I have always sought to express this link between my internal existence and the external. Finding expression by creating music and painting made me feel like I belonged without being judged – it was a wordless agreement that was felt and understood.

It is the act of painting that is most important to me. While painting I am engaged (willingly or not), I feel alive and fully in the moment. I am filled with an indescribable emotion that compels me to paint. I throw everything I have at the canvas, hitting it hard and fast. I build the canvas up with texture, and then tear it down and start again, creating a surface of many layers that tell a story.

I do not try to create landscapes or intentionally show patterns in nature. I paint intuitively; my sense of colour is immediate and my response is the same.

I keep what I like and bury the rest to build a painting with many textured levels until I feel it works. I seek to capture the essence of my life experiences on canvas and hope that the viewer becomes engaged with the painting and comes away with the sense of something intangible.”