Haven to Haven

Teskey began painting the sprawling beaches and towering cliffs. Like many artists in County Mayo, he often felt he did not paint the landscape so much as sudden shifts in light and weather. As he has noted, Ballycastle's geology is spectacular and similar to that of County Clare, but it remains relatively free of tourism and commercial development. As a result, the landscape provides an experience of the sublime in nature that is increasingly rare. As Teskey explored the County Mayo coastline, photography and sometimes videos provided him with memory aids, but drawing and an experimental studio practice remained his primary means for conveying the dynamism of the landscape. As he has stated, "Often, what becomes the basis of a painting is not so much the object of a scene, but the dynamic combination of lines created in the urgency of the drawing process." 1 His paintings do not capture a particular likeness of a place so much as a composite experience of being there over time.

Extract from the essay, Drawing into Painting by Andrea Packard, Curator of Donald Teskey Landscapes at List Gallery, Swarthmore College, PA Nov 2 - Dec 10. 2017