Rosemary Holland
Local artist and current Antrim Art Club President Rosemary Holland lives near Doagh, Co Antrim and comes from a farming family background. She was greatly inspired by her mother who came from an artistic family background and supported the Irish artists including her cousin Norman J McCaig and the Henry sisters. Rosemary developed her talent at school studying art to A Level and at Belfast College evening classes. A favorite is oil and palette knife technique using a range of harmonious colour tones for landscapes and seascapes. She also enjoys painting florals and figurative work inspired by her past tutors Kenneth Webb and Neil Shawcross. Her paintings have sold throughout the world and can be seen in local art galleries. She also taught art and drawing as a therapy to help people cope with health problems providing a creative outlet in the relaxation and tranquility of painting. In 2009, Rosemary was kindly honored by the Antrim County Council when she received the Community Excellence Award for her voluntary work in Art and Culture.
Cathy Fleming
Cathy Fleming is a local artist living near Ballyclare, Co. Antrim. Cathy attained an Honours degree in Applied and Decorative Arts from the University of Ulster specialising in Textile Design. After a twenty year break from art while raising her family, Cathy returned to painting as a hobby and now enjoys exhibiting with Antrim Art Club and painting the occasional commission. Living in a rural environment greatly influences Cathy's work, in which she loves to paint nature, florals, animals and especially birds. Cathy works in many different mediums, often mixing them, but favours oils the most. Cathy's love of floral painting was rewarded when she won the H. R. Brown Award from the Rose Society in 2018.
Mary Nelson
Local artist Mary Nelson lives in Randalstown, Co. Antrim and is a retired teacher and farmers wife. Mary enjoyed art at primary school and carries on her interest into the present day and is now the Honorary Member at the Antrim Art Club. Mary was very inspired by Maurice C Wilks, who was the first tutor and demo artist at the Club, and also by William Connor. Mary was a student at Queens University, taught geography and English and attended art courses and taught art as a therapy. She has sold her work locally and in America and has won awards for her watercolour paintings of local scenes during her career.
Des Monroe
It has been a wonderful 50 year journey since Desmond first picked up a paint brush. He is celebrating 20 years as a professional artist driven by a passion and love of art and the enjoyment of creating and giving pleasure to others.
Desmond always had an interest in drawing and painting from an early age and has attained an uncanny ability to capture the ever changing moods of the Irish landscape, while his more contemporary style adds a thought provoking dimension to his portfolio. Due to the high interest in his work he turned professional in 1993. He was an award winning artist in a province wide competition sponsored by Morgan Newspapers and is past Chairman of Carrickfergus Art club and former art lecturer at Newtownabbey Campus.
His work is shown in many leading galleries in the province and in recent years has been highly sought after in Dublin. He is primarily a landscape painter but recently he's been drawn to figurative work. His paintings are in the private collections of Wiggins Teape, the Department of the Environment and Belfast International Airport.
Ashley Coulter
Ashley Coulter is a self taught watercolour artist who had his first one man exhibition in 1989. He has exhibited in galleries such as Malone, Christeph, Ace of Arts, Saturn, Cambridge, Port, Spencer, O'Doherty Tower and others. His paintings have reached nearly every country in the world, with one of his better known commissions being for Chris Tarrant of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
Ashley has won the Keys Cup on three occasions and was selected for the Laing exhibition. He was chairman of Londonderry Art Society for five years and opened a gallery and framing business. A well known North-West artist whose paintings are much sought after (from No Bounderies Exhibition of Ireland and the USA), he is now living at Castlerock.
Rosemary Murphy
Rosemary is a former nurse and chemist assistant who lives in Ballymoney with her husband Derick. She has two children and four grandchildren. She loves to spend her time with her family, gardening, walking on the North Antrim coast and painting, but only started painting in retirement.
Rosemary sells successfully at local exhibitions and belongs to Causeway Coast Artists, Portballintrae and Portstewart art groups. She paints in most mediums but favours painting seascapes in mixed media.
Trevor McNeill
Trevor McNeill, 64, works as a minister and is married with children and grandchildren. He started painting in lockdown in 2020 after a break of almost 30 years. He works in acrylics and is facinated by watercolours, but his first love is oils and he will soon return to that medium. He is very busy at work and paints for pleasure and uses it as a calming therapy. Donegal is his passion and inspiration.
Olive MacDonald
Olive MacDonald has been painting since she retired early, having always had an interest in art. She paints mostly in watercolour but also some oils. Her inspiration comes from the natural world and the flowers, trees, birds and landscapes around Co Antrim, always returning to her first love, flowers.
She has exibited in art galleries in Jordanstown, Carrickfergus and Whitehead, holding solo exhibitions in The Gallery, Whitehead. She has completed many commissions, and her paintings have found homes as far away as Australia and Europe. Olive has been awarded the Raymond Kelly watercolour cup three times.
Trevor Lawrence
Trevor Lawrence worked as an illustrator from technical art ,advertising art, publishing, magazine illustrations to film and billboard posters. He also became an Art Director in London and has held various exhibitions particularly of automotive art both nationally and internationally. Originally from North London and now resident in County Antrim, he taught painting and drawing and regularly contributes to the Royal Ulster Academy annual exhibition. He now paints for pleasure and occasionally gives painting demonstrations.
Colm O'Hagan
Colm O'Hagan lives an works in Coalisland where he is self employed and married with four sons. Colm has had an interest in painting from a young age and paints for recreation. He is particularly known for his portraiture work but does some landscape and seascape work as well.
Colin Lemon
Colin Lemon was born and lives in Antrim and from a young age he developed an interest in art and drawing. He is interested in portraiture and uses pencil and acrylic as his medium and has undertaken all types of commissions. He is inspired by the work of artists Jim Fitzpatrick, Colin Davidson, Terry Bradley and the late Frank Frazetta.
He also enjoys reading, cooking and getting out on the open road on his motorbike.
Iris Cluney
Iris Cluney is a local Artist living in Newtownabbey she started painting at a very early age and her mother was also an artist.
She loves painting cats dogs horses birds and people plus landscapes and studied art and design in College.
She joined a professional art class in Newtownabbey campus and studied under Mr Eric Millar.
In the past she and her husband had an Art and Craft shop in Ballynure where she sold her paintings and also designed and made numerous pieces of furniture.
She exhibited some of her work in Belfast Castle and held an exhibition in Malone house.
She became a special needs teacher and had a great time teaching the primary school children how to draw, paint and make clay animals etc and she painted a Titanic scene for the school.
She has sold her work in Canada and America and continues with commissioned art work and likes painting endangered species.
She paints in all mediums, her favourite being oils.
Jamie Crabbe
A former Art & Design teacher, Jamie is now the exhibition coordinator for Antrim Art Club. He has had several solo exhibitions, including "G.O.T. to GO" in Malone House, Belfast; "Enigma" in The Wickerman, Belfast and "Nautica" in Clotworthy House, Antrim. He works in acrylic ink on watercolour board and acrylic paint on canvas. He is very interested in Celtic art and stained-glass motifs. Apart from artwork his interests include photography, reading British crime fiction, and cookery.
Louis Humphrey
Louis Humphrey has always had an interest in art and started painting at the age of 10. He studied art at Manchester Art College, obtaining a First Class Honours Degree with Commendations. Moving to London, he spent many years developing painting styles and techniques.
He has produced work for numerous collections in Australia, Canada, America, Poland and China and has also exhibited in galleries in Ireland including Belfast and Dublin. He has visited gallery owners in Boston, North Carolina, South Carolina and Montreal with a travelling exhibition of paintings and in recent years he has organised, run and taken part in various local art classes and painting demonstrations.
Although working with and enjoying all mediums, oil painting has always been his first love. His work has always been inspired by the wonderful Irish landscape.
John Taylor (in memoriam)
It is with great fondness that we remember our dear friend and Vice President of Antrim Art club John Taylor after his passing.
John was greatly inspired by his picturesque surroundings in and around where he lived in St Johnston, Donegal, and later by his travels with the Army around the world. John developed his talent studying art at evening classes. His favourite was acrylics but he also enjoyed using pastels and particularly enjoyed painting birds and animals, inspired by past tutor Julian Friers. John was the Vice President of Antrim Art Club and exhibited with the Club, also enjoying success with his successful solo exhibiton in the beautiful Antrim Library and selling his work all over the world.