Dearbhail Connon, a short Biography
Dearbhail Connon is best known for her deeply resonant abstract paintings that combine a search for meaning with her own personal experience. In particular, she is drawn to themes of spirituality and the interdimensional nature of reality.
Her chosen medium is oil on canvas and her style is abstract expressionist. Influences include work by Rothko and Kandinsky. Colour is often used and seen in terms of frequency resonance and vibration; it may suggest a feeling or an experience, and in particular has been shaped and influenced in more recent years by the sudden passing of her son Leon.
Dearbhail’s exhibition Beyond Form explores the question, does consciousness continue beyond this physical form. It opened on 12 th July 2019 and ran for three weeks at St Luke’s Cathedral in Cork City. It will be exhibited in a smaller revised form in June 2020 at the Crawford Gallery on Grand Parade, Cork.
Dearbhail’s book, entitled 0 Degrees of Separation, also takes us on a journey to the terrain of what lies beyond, or life after death. ‘O degrees of separation’, which is also the title of one of the paintings in the exhibition, refers to Leon, where he is now and where she can hear him, two different levels of energy, frequency and
vibration becoming One, where there is no separation.
Born in raised in Dublin, Dearbhail has been living in Cork for the past 20 years. Her training includes a BA (Hons) in Media Production, a BA in Fine Art, and a first class honors MA in Art Therapy. She has made many short films, including commissions from Cork County Council and the Irish Association of Creative Arts Therapies.
Dearbhail also works as an art psychotherapist and has a private practice in Kinsale specializing in loss and bereavement. Her work is also influenced by her training as an environmental arts therapist, which involves working with nature and outdoors. This is also combined with her training in pre-Celtic shamanism.
Instagram: @DearbhailConnon
Examiner article about Beyond Form:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/culture/body-of-work-allows-artist-cope-with-grief-of-losing-her-son-935524.html
YouTube channel showing video images of Beyond Form:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dearbhail+connon
Response by Christina Donaldson
Christina is originally from New York state and has recently completed her Master's in Positive and Coaching Psychology at UCC. She loves finding new ways to be moved by Cork's rich arts culture.
Dear Dearbhail,
Thank you so much for displaying your artwork at St. Luke's crypt. I've never been so moved by art before and was glad I followed the call to return twice to use the space to write. My brother died by suicide in 2004, when I was 15. I felt deep pain then but there was a lot I didn't know how to process.
Sitting in front of your first wall of artwork, I had sadness come up that I didn't even know I still had.
The ambiance you created with the artwork and music brought me to tears, and a deep sense of being in the presence of something profound. Something in your work spoke to me, and when I thought of why I wanted to go back each time, I knew that being in that room brought me to a space of feeling 'connected' to that greater power, divine, however you want to call it. Being in that room transported me right to it, something I'm always seeking, but sometimes find difficult to do on my own.
Thank you for creating art that could facilitate this, it was such a gift.
In the first writing session I wrote two poems (see below) and then had a kind of dialogue back and forth of asking questions and receiving answers. The second writing session was more of a journaling entry, and again asking questions and being open to answers. When I look back on it now, the first session for me was about letting go, the second about trusting.
I feel that your work is needed by the world, and hope that the art world can see the great value and gift you bring so that more people like me can experience it.
Inspired by: Zero Degrees of Separation
Endless as the night sky
you float on.
Around me,
your whispers of eternity.
Your light of hope
illuminating what
I cannot see.
Your love
carried by the
wings of birds
lives on.
I go to visit you
in the dark of
the morning.
I sit and watch
as you rise
taking over the
sky.
Nothing between
us but space.
You call my name.
It is dark and I
cannot see.
Your voice is clear and
faraway.
I have no doubt
you are here,
I am not alone.
You tell me you are
timeless, there
is nothing to fear.
You sit with me
and tell me you
will be with me
forever if I want.
I know where you are now
I know you are free.
Inspired by: Between sleep and waking you will find me
Like being on the moon,
the space around me is vast, dark.
Like a hand reaching out,
a glimmer of burning light in
the distance.
At once,
I am whole.
Grounded in a knowing
that all is well.
The darkness cast
by my belief in a solitary journey
begins to fade away.
What I couldn't see
is now before me,
part of me
that I didn't know.
Peace descends
like a sheer veil.
The earth continues to
spin.