A Wave from the Hill
A Wave from the Hill
MAR 22 – APR 19 2025
Artist: Donald Teskey
Donald Teskey | A Wave from the Hill brings together a collection of new and recent paintings by the artist. It features an evocative mix of coastal scenes and riverscapes that explore the beauty and raw power of the Irish landscape.
Known for his masterful command of texture and light, Teskey’s paintings capture the shifting moods of water, sky, and land. A Wave from the Hill showcases a dynamic range of works on both canvas and paper, varying in scale from intimate studies to large-scale immersive compositions on canvas.
The title A Wave from the Hill evokes both the ceaseless motion of ocean waves and a familiar, personal connection to the land, as though the artist himself is greeting a landscape he knows intimately. A landscape always evolving and adapting. This deep connection with the landscape and with the artist’s materials is echoed in Aidan Dunne’s comments about Donald Teskey’s work, noting that: “Teskey’s method is instinctive and gestural. Rather than slavish, detailed descriptions, information is imparted via touch, but never in an overbearing way.”
Teskey takes as inspiration a poem by Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist entitled, Fear which begins, “It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear.”
Exhibition Details:
MAR 22nd - APR 19th
Claremorris Gallery, Mount St. Claremorris, Co. Mayo
GALLERY HOURS:
1 - 6pm, Wednesday to Saturday or by appointment
CONTACT:
info@claremorrisgallery.com
087 791 2337
The poem about a river’s journey to the ocean explores the themes of transformation, movement, and the powerful relationship between nature and self, resonant in Teskey’s work. Teskey’s paintings conjure the pull of the sea, suggesting in their gaze the enhancement of life experience through an acceptance of our mortality.
“The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.”
In this light Teskey’s carries a kind of quiet acceptance—perhaps even a reverence—for the ephemeral nature of existence. His landscapes are not static—they breathe, they shift, they hold both the memory of what was and the inevitability of what’s to come. They suggest that embracing change—rather than fearing it—leads to a fuller, more profound engagement with life itself.
Teskey, whose career spans several decades, is widely recognized for his distinctive approach to landscape painting. His work has been exhibited extensively in Ireland and internationally and is held in major public and private collections.
