Damian's Bio

I grew up on the Falls Road in Belfast, moving to Clifden in 1999. Creativity has always been my driving force—as a child, I'd use my brother Bernard's colouring markers when mine dried up.

Through teacher Joe Cockeran's Euro Children initiative, I spent six summers in Belgium and one in Holland, escaping the crossfire of Belfast's violent conflict. These summers introduced me to great art. At 10, Dalí's surreal precision at his Paris museum captivated me. At 13 in Holland, Van Gogh's sketches of moving figures—people picking potatoes, covered in coal—showed me how to capture movement, which still drives my art.

When I was almost 16, my closest brother Bernard died in a car crash. This changed everything. Instead of being the first in my family to attend university, I chose hairdressing as my trade.

At 19, I moved to Los Angeles for six years, surviving armed robbery, the LA riots, and the Northridge earthquake. The LA County Museum, Getty, and Norton Simon became my sanctuaries, where Rembrandt and Van Gogh portraits felt like real people watching from their frames.

I've had no formal art training but developed my craft through life drawing classes in Belfast, Florence, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Galway, plus oil painting and watercolour studies. Hairdressing trained my eyes and hands to deconstruct and reconstruct geometric shapes on organic forms—principles that flow naturally into my art.

Today, I run 'Art Together,' providing space for local artists to create collaboratively, and monthly life drawing sessions in Clifden. My art tells my life's story through the people and places around me, challenging myself to create from what I actually see.