Artist Emma brings colourful collection to Ballyroan Library

“IT STARTED during Covid when I couldn’t get to beaches and coastal locations, so I started painting them.”

Knocklyon-based artist Emma Higgins presents ‘Travelogue’, a new collection of colourful contemporary paintings at Ballyroan Library, Rathfarnham, showing from September 7 to 26, 2026.

The exhibition will be officially opened by Mary Kennedy of RTÉ at a special opening reception on Thursday, September 10, from 5.00 to 7.30pm. All are welcome to attend.

‘Travelogue’ is a collection of paintings inspired by journeys taken over the past year and an ongoing exploration of the Irish coastline.

This is Emma’s sixth solo exhibition, and it has a slightly different approach than her previous displays, as she shows off two different styles in the one exhibition as well as her research, which is also for sale in the form of 25 mixed media collage pieces.

While travelling through Morocco and Portugal, Emma gathered impressions of place through colour, light, atmosphere, sounds and fleeting visual moments. These experiences became the starting point for a series of colour-led works, almost like mood boards distilled into paint.

Alongside these works are new additions to Emma’s continuing series of Irish coastal paintings, filling in some of the gaps in a project that has evolved over several years.

Together, the paintings in ‘Travelogue’ explore how memory, landscape and colour intertwine, capturing not exact locations but the feeling of being there.

Paper collage has also played an important role in the development of the new work. Emma used collage to explore the colours, shapes and forms gathered from each place, creating visual studies that became a starting point for the paintings.

She cites her favourite parts of working on the exhibition as being the travel “to start with” and then experimenting with new colour palettes and collage processes.

Another highlight has been allowing herself to paint what she loves and keeping true to her love of colour.

The challenge for Emma always is “trying to create balance within my business to be a creator and a business owner”.

She has recently completed a local enterprise, ‘Lean for Business’, course which is “definitely” helping with better planning for smoother running of proceedings, especially in the run-up to her busy periods.

Beyond ‘Travelogue’, Emma has an artists’ residency planned for a week in Bordeaux in France with groups of eight other artists, and then she will be exhibiting at Art Source and Gifted in the RDS.

She will also be featured at the Ballymaloe Christmas fair and will be hosting an open studio in her studio in Knocklyon in the run-up to Christmas; more details will follow on her socials in the coming months.

Emma would like to thank her artist friends, family, Mary Kennedy, and the staff at Ballyroan Library for their help with this exhibition.

Her work is available through her website, as well as selected galleries and retailers nationwide.

For more information and to view Emma’s work, visit emmahiggins.