12th January 2022
Mayor Richard Holmes with painting titled Songs of the Sea
A new art exhibition inspired by the stunning seascapes and coastline of Inishowen has opened at Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre in Limavady.
Songs of the Sea by internationally acclaimed artist Rikki-Louise van den Berg explores the dialogue between artist, land and coast in the beautiful surroundings of Donegal.
The exhibition spans two galleries, featuring a collection of new works from 2021, with a range of small and large pieces reflecting Rikki's explorative walks along the shore.
It was officially launched with a virtual tour led by the artist on January 12th via Facebook Live.
Originally from Holland, Rikki spent her formative years in Ireland and returned to these shores in 1997 to establish herself as a figurative and abstract painter, embarking on a personal journey in search of identity and place.
Explaining her inspiration, Rikki said: "My work is an inner-response to my outside world, my surroundings, to nature; it's vulnerable beauty, colours, movement, contrasts, it's fleeting moments of timelessness.
“I work intuitively, and I welcome the tempestuous, the surprise and unexpected beauty in a stroke, movement or colour.”
“To me the essence of painting lies in the process, the learning, mark making, the discovery. It's about expressing what I feel. During the painting process I can build, destroy, uncover, paint over, wash and scrape, apply layers of paint by knife or hands or even sometimes from a distance. An intriguing conversation between me and the canvas, mirroring perhaps the acts of nature on the landscape.”
Rikki’s work has received both national and international acclaim and is currently represented by several renowned galleries in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
In 2012, she was selected as part of a small group of Irish painters to participate in ‘Irish Wave 3’, Beijing, China, curated by BIGsmall and Fion Gunn. A series of visual art events were held in Beijing and Shanghai in March 2012, continuing into 2013.
In 2016 Rikki received the Tyrone Gurthrie Residency Award for the second time, which followed by being selected for the Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Show in 2017, marking an important point in her career as a landscape artist.
She has recently been nominated for the Hambly & Hambly French Residency Award 2022 under the mentorship of Irish Artist Eamon Colman in collaboration with Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris.
The Songs of the Sea exhibition is free to visit and will remain in place until February 5th.
For further information and opening hours please visit www.roevalleyarts.com
