Ballymaloe and Camille Souter

Ballymaloe's Dining Room

I don’t want to sound all smug and conceited here, but recently I was whisked off to the utterly delectable  Ballymaloe Country House Hotel run by the Allen family, for what I feel was a much deserved and long-awaited break.  Yes and Ballymaloe is just ‘right’ in every way, it certainly ticks all my boxes and the food is just ‘simply delicious’. Long live the Allen dynasty.

What I didn’t prepare for though was the sheer delight of seeing so much modern Irish art on the walls, from the exquisite Louis LeBrocquy tapestries hanging in the entrance hall; the hard- edge abstracts of Cecil King and Patrick Scott, to the Michael Farrell’s self-searching prints decking the corridors.  Iconic names such as Nano Reid, Norah McGuiness, Jack Yeats, Mary Swanzy, adorn every alcove, nook and cranny.  This is a personal collection of great insight and empathy with that period of Irish Art history that starts with Nathanial Hone’s  pastoral scenes and ends with Elizabeth Cope’s eye popping red field with sheep.   This is such a strong and obviously much loved and cherished family collection and as a result a very cohesive and concise slice of important Irish art.

If I was to choose a favourite painting from this collection, it would be the understated Camille Souter that is hanging in the sitting room.   This painting is hung between the two large sash windows, a little ‘tongue in cheek’ I feel, as the painting itself depicts a large sash window filling the whole canvas, framing a view of a garden.   Like all Souter’s work it is tonally complex and subtly sophisticated.  I like to feel that she painted this while staying as a guest at Ballymaloe, all molly-coddled and sated, lying in white linen sheets with her hall-mark of a beret firmly placed on the side of her head, and the breakfast  tray with the remnants of a lightly poached egg , jugged kipper, and half- drunk third cup of tea, at her bare feet.   I imagine  her easel is set up conveniently  next to her bedside table and the sprigged floral sanderson curtains are drawn well back to reveal a soft grey-green sort of day, a heavy drizzle has set in, stopping Camille from flinging open the French doors.  She is putting the finishing touches to her Ballymaloe painting, that will be presented to the art loving member of the Allen family later on that day, and yes it is a  view from her bed –and why not, a sash window creates the perfect  framework in which  to suspend her tender brush strokes of abstracted form and delicate colour nuances, in a masterpiece of painterly perfection. 

Camille Souter  Washing by the Canal.

'Walled Garden' summer paintings 2012

cream tea 122x122cm oil on canvas

Walled garden summer collection now available and showing at The Doorway Gallery, Dublin  2 and The Russell Gallery , Putney, London.

It was during the Christmas break that I first conceived of the idea for this painting.  My two daughters back for the holiday and bonding over the kitchen table probably with laptops and coffee between them, where at either side of my long refectory-type table, and I was at the kitchen sink (no comment) looking across directly mid line.  I felt a painting coming on, and jotted down a few quick reminders to work through the idea more fully later.  I have used cream tea as subject matter before, back in 2005, where there were two cream tea still lifes in my solo show at Adam’s in St.Stephan’s Green, Dublin 2.  My aim, in this recent collection of summer paintings, was to make my interior scenes have an outdoor country feel, maybe some deep physiological need for summer during the short dark days of winter……. Crazy really ‘cos we still hav’nt had any decent summer weather yet and its July in a few days!  So I am thinking that in my case my paintings are definately a form of self-medication!

I suppose, in this painting more than in the rest of the ‘Walled Garden” collection, I have used a lot of different fabrics, and it is in these textiles that I have introduced most of the outdoor references.  These have been sourced mainly from 18th century textiles and decorative patterns.  If we think nowadays that we are innovative and edgy with our decorative arts, then think again as 300 years ago, it was as punky and wacky as it gets.  I think all our colour do’s and don’t’s must have happened relatively recently. I have never liked being told what not to do, so I have pheasants, butterflies, flowers and strawberry plants all vying for attention.  Even though I use colour defiantly and boldly go where no man has gone before,  I see them as all balanced and harmonious and to me impart a sense of calmness and well-being. 

18th century fabric book