Living life in colour

Mairead Finlay is a British artist living in Lisbon since 2020. Mairead excels in filling her joyous landscapes and portraits with vibrant colour, using a range of mediums such as marker pens, pastels and inks. “I create hand-drawn, expressionist-style portraits and landscapes with bright flashes of colour and freely play with lines to bring people and places to vivid life. I love doing vibrant work, everything I tend to do is quite vivid.”

Lisbon’s art scene

Undoubtedly, the way Lisbon inspires the artist embodies all of her work, Mairead affirmed that “It is definitely an inspirational place to be, the colours and the quality of light and when it gets to that golden hour, it is so inspiring just walking down the street.”

When it comes to Lisbon’s creative scene, Mairead told The Portugal News that “I think it is great, there are so many neighbourhoods that have wonderful little galleries and I love the MAAT Museum. I find inspiration everywhere in Lisbon, I really do and maybe that sounds a little cheesy. I am lucky to be friends with some lovely artists here, that I bounce off and we end up taking each other’s ideas.”

“Art is always going to be a big part of my life”

Mairead spoke about her artist journey in that “art has always been something I’ve been interested in since a young age, and I did an Art Foundation when I was about 18 back in London but then I turned my back on art completely. I think it was always something I enjoyed but I didn’t fully allow myself to enjoy it as a potential career option so then I ended up doing a Politics & French degree so then I went into a political background and European Parliament for a bit and doing various communication roles and gradually art started to creep back into my life as a past time and then I started to work freelance.”

“It started off as once or twice a week and then it grew to every single day and I realised that art was always going to be a big part of my life and I wasn’t quite enjoying the work I was doing. I started to take on more commissions and combining everything and now I am at a point, where I am mostly doing it full time which is incredible. I am very grateful for that and I have been living in London for most of my life before and it would never have been possible there but in Lisbon, it really came together.”

A Vibrant Look

When discussing her style and medium, Mairead shared with The Portugal News that “Since my Art Foundation, I have always used felt tip marker pens predominantly and I have always been drawn to them and I can’t really explain why but maybe it is the childlike aspect to them that I really enjoy.”

Adding that “It is only in the last two years that I have started to combine soft pastels, oil pastels as well as starting to use acrylic markers which featured heavily in the exhibition, I really enjoy how quickly you can get a vibrant look with them. They are just fantastic for mark-making.”

‘Life and Other Wonders’ Exhibition

Mairead Finlay had her first solo exhibition in Portugal which took place in creative hub In Bloom, in Lisbon. Mairead's vivid portraits and landscapes (which frequently depict Lisbon's streets saturated in colour) have previously been featured in Vogue, House and Gardens and European Parliament.

When asked about the opening night, Mairead said “I was there on the opening night and you always have a fear that no one is going to turn up but it went well. We had about 60 to 80 people come on the night which to me was lovely and it’s really great to see people enjoy your work.”

Discussing the inspiration behind the exhibition Mairead told The Portugal News “I wanted to do an exhibition that really celebrated daily life in terms of landscapes and I like to draw daily life so buildings, people and everything like that but I also really enjoy drawing the human form and I do a lot of life drawing and usually keep the two very separate in terms of landscapes and portraiture but with this exhibition I brought them together through using black paper and using the same media throughout and everything is Portugal based.”

So, for the portraiture aspect of the exhibition, all of the models are from Portugal and the ceramics are made in Portugal and all of the daily life drawings are me going around Lisbon with my sketchbook and taking things from there. In terms of the portraiture, I really wanted to focus on vibrant expressions of femininity and I really wanted to do some new portraiture that wasn’t kind of focused on the male gaze so it is focused on the female gaze.”

The Joys of Ceramics

At the exhibition Mairead had limited edition ceramics, “I had never done ceramics before so that included doing pots and tiles with different drawings. I find it very therapeutic and I am committed to developing my skills more deeply. I had very positive feedback and it has given me a massive boost to develop my own ceramic-making skills and I am actually signed up to something get the ball rolling so that should be something I will adding to my shop in the future.

Lots more colourful works to come!

Mairead told The Portugal News that “I am applying for some expos in London as I would love to hear some feedback as my work has changed somewhat since living there. I do intend to do more exhibitions in Portugal because a lot of my work is Portuguese landscapes so I couldn’t think of a better place for it.”

In terms of the future, “the main thing I want to do is more works on combining portraiture and landscapes as I loved combining those two loves in my latest exhibition but of course the future is also ceramics!”

“I am in talks with a couple of Lisbon shops to show different prints” but currently you can buy Mairead’s landscape prints at the art gallery kiosks Novo Banca Galeria.

For more information, please visit www.maireadfinlay.com where you can find beautiful prints for sale including my favourite fruit markets. To keep up to date with the artist on Instagram @maireadillustrates. Finally, for beautifully eye-catching commissions please get in touch via hello@maireadfinlay.com.

Following undertaking her university degree in English with American Literature in the UK, Cristina da Costa Brookes moved back to Portugal to pursue a career in Journalism, where she has worked at The Portugal News for 3 years. Cristina’s passion lies with Arts & Culture as well as sharing all important community-related news.

Cristina da Costa Brookes