“Each artwork is a world unto itself, with rules laid down just for it, replete with its own questions, its own laws of what is permissible. I make art because of this world building capacity – to create spaces where harmony and contradiction can hang together. It’s a world where uncertainty is acceptable and where playfulness, connectedness and belonging can make space for contentment within the tensions of a full life”.

Caitlyn Rooke is a painter living in Galway, Ireland. Traces of realism, expressionism, and graphic realism appear in playful re-imaginings of Ireland’s west coast. The result is a distinctive dream-like vision. While reminiscent of Paul Henry’s landscapes, Caitlyn’s work departs from pure nostalgia through references to the expansion of technology across the countryside, rising sea levels, summer crowds populating otherwise sparse fields, and the sheer joy of feeling cradled between the shadow of a mountain and a cloud.

Her work has been exhibited with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Hibernian Academy’s annual exhibitions. After receiving an invitation to exhibit at the RHA’s 191st Annual, her work received the Whyte’s Award and the Contemporary Irish Art Society Award. Caitlyn’s work is in the Office of Public Works State Art Collection as well as in various private collections.

Since graduating with a BFA in 2010, she has continued new learnings via workshops with artists such as Donald Jurney, Conor Walton, Vincent Desiderio, Bernardo Siciliano, and Aleah Chapin. Caitlyn is currently engaged in the MFA program at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.