Danielle O'Connor Akiyama

Painting with an uninhibited vigour and freedom, Danielle creates luminous images that vibrate with life, energy and colour. Whether she is depicting a riotous party of flowers or inviting us to enter a radiant new world of abstraction, her vibrant palette, loose formal structure and unique vocabulary of signs and symbols make her work both instantly recognisable and utterly irresistible.

Danielle began a ‘second life’ on the west coast of Ireland a few years ago, moving there from Canada. Having found the faith and self belief to take this major step, Danielle is mining a rich seam of inspiration in the unearthly beauty of the hills, the wildness of the Atlantic coast and the ever shifting light parade.

In order to gain a greater understanding and technical skill she studied sumi-e, Japanese brush painting, and was awarded the prestigious Master’s Seal for outstanding work. The red Japanese chop mark which appears in all her work signifies her honorary Sumi-E title, ‘Source of Joy’.

Her distinctive fusion of eastern and western artistry has led to her works being highly prized by art collectors from both sides of the Pacific, and she has been the subject of a major fine art retrospective book entitled ‘Illumination’ which further enhanced her status in the UK.

Although her home is in Canada and Ireland, Danielle has travelled to every continent of the world seeking inspiration for subjects, colours and textures both through local culture and nature. She also collects minerals including gold, quartz and diamond tailings, pounding them to create texture in her paints and making her works even more original by “connecting them to the earth”.