Local Faces: Leo Clancy

EVERY landscape is a potential source of inspiration for Rathcoole man Leo Clancy, whose passion for creating vibrant and arresting landscapes in his oil paintings has never waned over his many decades as an artist.

Now aged 77, Leo first started drawing when he was 12-years-old, after watching a classmate in his primary school in Grangegorman sketching an image.

“A young lad in the class was drawing and I took a liking to it,” Leo explained. “I started going to the duck pond in the Phoenix Park and I’d sketch the ducks.

“I loved it and I got great pleasure out of it. I’d draw things that I saw and I’d sketch things out of comics.

“It’s something that you develop over time. It’s about the coordination between your hands, your eyes and your mind.”

Leo Clancy, whose passion for creating vibrant and arresting landscapes in his oil paintings has never waned

When Leo turned 17, he enrolled in a part-time evening art class at NCAD, which was then located on Kildare Street, where he studied drawing under the tutelage of Maurice McGonagle.

He studied there for three years, before going on to attend part-time art classes focusing on portrait painting, led by George Collie, for the following ten years.

“George was a great man, he was very good,” Leo said. “I could see the progress I was making and he praised me for that too.

“I would’ve loved to be able to study full-time, but circumstances got in the way.”

Leo balanced his painting with raising his two children, David and Louise, with his wife Breda, and working full-time doing shift work in a factory.

When Leo was 27, he moved to Rathcoole – then a rural town – with Breda, where the couple went on to raise their young family.

Leo Clancy feels that creating artwork is a transcendent experience that is an essential part of his life

“It’s always been a lovely area, but there have been a lot of changes since I moved here,” he said.

“There are more shops and buildings, and more housing estates. It was a rural town when I moved here.

“I remember when I moved here all the aul lads would be in the pub telling their stories and they’re all gone now – now I’m one of the aul lads!

“We used to go into areas that have been built on now. We would ramble through the fields and see cows and the odd fox, but it’s all been built on now.

“But I’m very happy that we moved here – it’s a lovely area.”

After ten years spent studying under George Collie, Leo stopped attending art classes as he had to focus on his job and his family life, but he continued to develop as an artist in his own time.

Leo Clancy

“I was a shift worker and I had to pack [the art classes] in, so I continued with the art at home in my spare time,” he explained.

“I kept up with it and I made good progress. I’d draw and paint at home, and the love for it was still there.

“I continued studying in my own way, reading books and going to galleries. I was continuously observing and studying things.

“I couldn’t give it up – it would’ve been like stopping breathing. I got terribly moody if I didn’t get to paint and draw.”

It was during his period of self-taught artistry that Leo linked up with some of his former classmates from George Collie’s class, and they decided to hold a group exhibition of their work in Donnybrook.

This marked the first time Leo’s work was exhibited in public, and he can still remember how excited he was at the time.

Leo Clancy

“It was a great thrill to see the work you’ve put in getting some recognition, and being shown in public.”

Leo’s work has gone on to be exhibited many times over the years, including four solo exhibitions, and at exhibitions in the Oireachtas and the Royal Hibernian Academy of Art.

While Leo is also skilled at portraiture, a lot of his work is inspired by his surroundings, and there has been no shortage of inspiration for him in the idyllic environs of Rathcoole over the years.

“Over the years I’d see things in the fields around Newcastle and Rathcoole that I’d put in my paintings, like an aul ditch or a pallet.

“There’s loads of material, like the canals over at Hazelhatch. I used to bring a fold-up easel out with me and paint from nature.”

A piece that Leo is currently working on, called ‘The Halting Site’, centres on a caravan he saw in Wicklow, while the background is provided by trees he saw in Corkagh Park. Pallets and tyres he saw in a scrapyard are also in it.

Leo’s three grandsons, Adam (18), Ben (13) and Liam (9) Noone, who regularly feature in his paintings, are in the foreground.

For every painting he creates, however, Leo is always looking ahead to how he can develop and progress as an artist. He hopes to eventually hold a retrospective exhibition of his work.

“I get total satisfaction and fulfilment when I finish a painting,” he said. “Every painting I do is as good as I can do it at that time, but whatever I’m doing next, I want it to be even better – that’s how you progress.

“I’m satisfied with my work, but I’m never fully satisfied, because otherwise you’ll remain at the level you’re at and you’ll never progress.”

As for his longevity as an artist, Leo said he feels that creating artwork is a transcendent experience that is an essential part of his life.

“It’s like a spiritual thing, that’s the way I look at it. You get a glimpse into something that’s hard to describe, but it’s like food for your soul.”