in conversation with Bríd Higgins Ní Chinnéide
This summer, we met Dublin-based painter Bríd Higgins Ní Chinnéide to learn more about her painting practise, her journey thus far as an artist and balancing creative process with life’s responsibilities. Bríd will lead a Parea workshop in portrait painting from life in oils in October.
PA: To begin, can you briefly tell us what inspired you to become a painter?
BNC: Like a lot of children, I loved to paint and draw and I just kept doing it as I grew older. At first I was attracted to the puzzle-like challenge of how to represent real-live things or people with a pencil and a piece of paper, and later I became more interested in understanding how mysterious parts of our lives can be expressed in pictures.
PA: What has been the most pivotal experience for you that’s influenced your practice?
BNC: Probably studying art in the St Petersburg Academy of Art in Russia. That experience was certainly significant in affecting how I work, but I’m not sure that its influence was entirely positive.
PA: Could you briefly describe your creative process? How has it changed over the years?
BNC: That process is a bit of a struggle. I don’t have as much time to work as I’d like. I’m always gathering ideas in the regular way: consuming lots of images and texts and doing a lot of looking around. Then, when I do get into the studio, I try to start painting immediately. I don’t do much sketching, but I'm constantly researching. This has always been my way.
PA: What would you say is your main source of inspiration for your work? Has that changed for you over time? If so, how?
BNC: I’m mainly inspired by other painters and artists and by what I see around me in life, in film, in photography, etc. Nowadays I am more influenced by work that has conceptual heft, whereas previously I was more focussed on looking at other artists’ techniques.
PA: How do you approach reflecting or creating emotions in your work?
BNC: I don’t set out to create emotions, but I would hope that some sort of feeling is transmitted through my work because either the subjects or the ideas in the work have some meaning to me.
PA: What part of your work as an artist has challenged you the most? How did you work through that?
BNC: I am challenged by trying to work while at the same time managing my other responsibilities. I wish I had more time to transition from life to creative work and out again. The struggle is on-going!
PA: You have a lot of experience teaching painting, in particular portraiture from life. How has this experience influenced your own practice if at all? What part of teaching do you enjoy the most?
BNC: I teach classes with adults and children. I have found it very enriching. When you have to explain why or how you do something, you end up really clarifying it for yourself as an artist. Then you might question the very thing you are teaching! Then you learn!
Teaching students who are really trying to make progress is the most satisfying, though I enjoy meeting people at different stages of their painting lives.
PA: Finally, what advice would you offer to emerging artists in Ireland?
BNC: All you can do is keep working and submitting to every group show and opportunity that comes up.
Bríd will lead our workshop in October 2025 in Dublin, Ireland - portait painting in oils from life.
Bookings are now open here.
