Artists find a shore thing in West Cork landscapes

A new exhibition at West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen features a range of artists who pay homage to the local environs, writes Alan O’Riordan

THE landscape of West Cork has been attracting artists for generations, both as a subject and as a place to live. Of course, for most artists those two things inevitably become intermingled. “If you live somewhere, the spirit of that place seeps into the work,” says the ceramic maker Cormac Boydell.

He’s lived near Allihies since the 1970s, when he swapped Australia and a career as a geologist for the remote Beara Peninsula. Boydell’s newest works deliberately evoke the local landscape, and feature in Nearshore a group show at Uillinn, the new West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen.