Valerie Syms Martin

Valerie Syms Martin, ANCAD, MA, MLIS.

University College Dublin
2005 MA (Hons) in History of Art
2006 MLIS (Hons)

1978 Córas Trachtála Design Award

National College of Art and Design
1978 Diploma (Hons) in Three Dimensional Design
Scholarship Holder 1974-1978
1980 Principles of Art Teaching Diploma
Exhibitions include:
Royal Hibernian Academy
Watercolour Society of Ireland
Dublin Painting and Sketching Club
Dublin Art Society
Kilkenny Arts Week

Valerie’s paintings in watercolour and oils are representations of her surroundings. She loves the ever-changing colours of nature, and the rhythms and patterns that can be found there. In particular, the characteristics of water play an important part in her work. She look at the play of light on the sea, the dance of reflections, and even how wet pavements and roads can totally transform a scene.

Much of Valerie’s work is local, based on her surroundings in South County Dublin, or in the Irish countryside. Depending on the time of day and the weather conditions, a familiar place can assume radically differing appearances. Details also change between one visit and the next, and the whole colour and feel of a place can totally change.

People play an important if sometimes-minor part in Valerie’s work, walking along a beach or engrossed in some activity. She love life drawing so sometimes they become the whole focus of a study. Each human pose offers a series of rhythms and lines of action. The hardness of bone is set against the softness of muscles. Surprising flesh tones sit side by side. Underlying all observation of the human form is an appreciation of anatomical structure and the wish to express it in paint.