Here are two new paintings concerned with the intangible nature of time and reality.  Time is a very slippery customer.  If you try to get your hands on time, it trickles through your fingers like sand running through an hourglass. Everyone is sure that time is there but they just can’t get hold of it.  Maybe they can’t get hold of it because it isn’t there at all.  But if it isn’t there at all, why does it play such a fundamental role in every moment of our existence?

My first painting shows an hourglass, a traditional and ancient measure of time. The upper globe shows the busy Antrim Road, Belfast, at Atlantic Avenue.  It captures a moment in everyday life, a moment in time.  The sands of time drain into the lower globe but into a very different world. The timeless Great Pyramids of Giza and another traditional measure of time dominate the background while a man and a dog stroll past in the foreground.  This collection of disparate paraphernalia is simply food for thought. It is for the viewer to come to his or her own conclusion.

The second painting again draws its imagery from the Antrim Road, close to where I live and work.  It is concerned with the nature of reality.  Reality seems to be very fundamental and dependable.  Something, with whatever amount of poking and prodding, remains reassuringly solid.  However, think about our modern-day lust for simulated reality and our many journies in cyberspace.  Could we be a brain in a bell jar? Again food for thought.  Both paintings will be exhibited at the Royal Ulster Academy Exhibition at the Ulster Museum, Stranmillis, Belfast from 19th October 2018.

 

This is a wonderful walk.  I would rate it as difficult as it includes two of the highest peaks in the Mournes.  However, the views of the Kingdom of Mourne make up for all that hard work.  For a map and statistics  go to www.wikiloc.com/running-trails/commedagh-donard-circuit-27975006

Start the walk in Donard car park on the southern side of Newcastle.  Leave the car park through the distinctive archway and turn left on to the Bryansford Road.  Follow the road to reach Tipperary Wood on the left at a road bridge over the Shimna River.  This is a lovely riverside walk which leads to Tipperary Lane, past Tipperary House and up to a narrow tarmac road.  Turn right on the tarmac road and then veer left on to an even narrower road which will take you steeply uphill. Go through a gate at the end of the road and cross a step stile beside another gate.  A forest track zigzags uphill and you turn sharp left at the first intersection and left again to reach the Drinns.

At the Drinns you will see a small gate which will give you access to the rugged slopes.  There is a rough track from the gate but head roughly southwards towards a gap between a rounded hill close to the forest and the much larger Slievenabrock.  You will reach a ruined dry stone wall, step through a gap and start climbing steeply to reach the cairn on top of Shan Slieve.  Now follow a series of white posts to reach Slieve Commedagh at 767 metres.  Slieve Commedagh (from Irish Sliabh Coimhéideach, meaning the guarding, watching mountain) has a beautifully rounded summit with a prominent lookout tower dated 1913, built into the Mourne Wall.  From here there are wonderful views, in every direction, of the Kingdom of Mourne.

Follow the Mourne Wall down a grassy slope to start the ascent of Slieve Donard, (from Irish: Sliabh Dónairt, meaning “Dónairt’s mountain”). The ascent is steep with some small well-embedded boulders in place.

It is not possible to see the summit until you are almost there.  At the top, there is another tower dated 1910 and, of course, at 850 metres, wonderful views.

To return to Donard car park, retrace your steps back down Donard.  Then turn right at the bottom to reach a large cairn and then a rugged stone staircase to reach the Glen River.  Follow the river past the eighteenth-century ice house and eventually back to the car park.