Ellen McDermott's Fine Art Portraiture is portraiture with a difference. She started taking photographs to use as guides in her paintings but soon found that she was being asked by people if she would sell them her prints and take their photographs.

Ellen was picked as one of the Finalists in PhotoIreland Festival Open Call 2010. She is a Director of Kilmantin Art Gallery in Wicklow Town. Up until this year Ellen was on the Wicklow Arts Festival Committee but resigned from the board in order to concentrate more on her photography.

For further details on Ellen click here.

Francis Kennedy works from a small studio at his home in Athenry, in the west of Ireland. "I own paint brushes and I use them".

He has a great love of music, having played in a number of bands in a former life and much of his work revolves around musicians and recitals.

Francis' art hangs on the walls of some famous names, like Sharon Corr, Brendan Shine, and the soprano Deirdre Shannon-Gilsenan, as well as in the offices of Coffey Construction and Galway Bay FM.

For further details on Francis click here.

At the age of 31 Jay Walker returned to college studying Art and Design. It was here that abstract expressionism was to have a major influence; Jackson Pollock being the main inspirational figure. Upon leaving college he moved to Dublin, found a studio in the Docklands area and carried on painting, developing his work and absorbing the surroundings.

Jay now works from a studio in Co Carlow, at the foot of Mount Leinster. His more recent work has moved further from abstraction toward a style of impressionism; recording the change and development which is sweeping the cities throughout Ireland and in contrast the subdued tranquility of coastal and country life.

For further details on Jay click here.

Galway based, full time irish artist, Mary Cahalan, pen name PIXI, has been making positive waves in the Irish art world. Her work has been described as striking and vivid using a palate of vibrant colours conveying warmth and humour in a figurative / abstract style which reflects Mary's bubbly personality, zest for life and wild sense of humour. This artist is talented and great fun.

Mary's art has sold as far a field as Toronto, Paris , U.K. , Dubai, Florida and New York. Discerning art lovers and collectors are adding her work to their collections and her profile is ever expanding.

For further details on Mary click here.

Having lived in Dublin, London, New York and LA, Charmain Fitzgerald is inspired by the unusual quirkes and nuances of her past and present surroundings and their accompanying inhabitants. She chooses oil or acrylic as her medium and her paintings are figurative and realist/surrealist, using representational form to create a sense of otherness, not detached from everyday things.

Forgoing the education route due to so much moving around, Charmain has been taking classes under established artists for the past few years, and currently works from her home in north Dublin. She is making the transition from concentrating on portrait work over to encompassing unsettling interiors and still life where your eye is caught more so by the items that should not really be there.

For further details on Charmain click here.