Colm Mac Athlaoich: At the moment it has to be ‘Hotel Room’ by Edward Hopper at the Thyssen-Bornemisza
in Madrid because I saw it recently and it has stayed with me. It manages to be representational and still satisfy a curious eye, I think it does it with such a sophisticated palette.

Colm Mac Athlaoich: Per Kirkeby show at Almine Rech in Paris in 2018.
And a screening of Chris Cunningham’s flex at the 5th Gallery in the Guinness Storehouse in 2002, curated by Paul Murnaghan. The video’s soundtrack was created by Cunningham in collaboration with Richard D. James.

Taking screenshots of anything that inspires me and never look at it again, somehow I feel it gets stored somewhere in my mind. Sketching and taking time to plan work. Vigorously scraping my glass palette surface clean.

Colm Mac Athlaoich: As time passes my relationship to books previously read have changed but I would still recommend ‘Ways of Seeing’ by John Berger and ‘At swim two birds’ by Flann O’Brien.

Colm Mac Athlaoich: The Hours by Philip Glass, Portia by Miles Davis, Delta Blues by Jon Hassell, Art of the Trio, Vol. 1 by Brad Mehldau, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Moments in Love by The Art of Noise. I like to put on The Hours (Philip Glass) when I’m already deep into a painting and want to get cerebral.

Colm Mac Athlaoich: I’m not a dancer but perhaps in another life I would be because I’m drawn to it on a subconscious level. I think I’m almost over it but the viral choreography by Luis Sanchez @mtb._.luis to the song ‘you dropped a bomb on me’ he films the dance in random public places and it still brings me joy. And another choreography by @ambiguous_kim it’s weird and wonderful.

Colm Mac Athlaoich: So I spend a lot of time in Brussels and there’s a number of amazing public spaces in the city, Victor Horta’s house is sublime, the small packed tables in Cafe de Spores restaurant, on the trail in Forêt de Soignes.

Colm Mac Athlaoich: Colour palettes make their way into my work gradually until a whole period of time has been defined by certain combinations. The end of 2025 I became obsessed with magenta, mixing it with blues and browns, and these hues would bounce off emerald green. This year I found myself using a butter white a lot, always trying to find that colour friction between organic and inorganic hues. I feel our eyes will accept a certain tone while rejecting another which may sit beside it, this is a tool I try to understand while painting.

Colm Mac Athlaoich: Ha! A teacher once winced at a painting of mine which I had framed, he hated frames on paintings, this is a purest attitude a bit of a post modernist hangover, I still disagree with him, he was a lovely guy though but not a painter.
This doesn’t really answer the question, I know! I’ve always found my art practice to be a very personal pursuit, the making and the viewing of it. Any advice or influence that I might look back on with resentment might actually be my own. I’ve always relied on my own intuition, a constant relearning and questioning.

Colm Mac Athlaoich: It will likely be a dedicated period of time spent on recording a new music project, which may involve escaping to Greece.