Irish Landscape Artist
Dana Winder is one of Ireland’s important Irish landscape artists, known for her sensitive use of colour. Her paintings focus on the landscape, native trees, wildflowers, and the changing skies of County Kerry, where she both lives and works. Her landscape paintings are mostly painted outdoors on location, en plein air.
Painting Process and Technique: Dana likes to paint outdoors on location to accurately capture the colours of the landscape. She returns to these locations and works on her paintings over multiple sessions. Sometimes refining these works later in the studio. This two-stage process allows her to observe the landscape closely and respond to it with layered surfaces and thoughtful composition. As a result, her work captures more than a scene—it conveys a deep sense of presence, atmosphere, and mood.
Rather than striving for precise representation, her work is imaginative, using colour and brushwork to evoke the mood and atmosphere of a place.
Working mainly in oil on linen, Dana prepares her canvas with a transparent primers. This choice allows the natural tone and texture of the linen to become part of the final composition. She applies paint using both palette knives and brushes, building surfaces rich in texture and detail. Furthermore, she mixes her colour palette from primary pigments, creating subtle, harmonious tones. Occasionally, she employs a single “mother colour” to unify the work.
Irish landscape artists
Dana’s practice sits firmly within the tradition of Irish landscape artists. However, she brings a contemporary perspective, grounded in direct observation and daily engagement with the land around her.
Over the years, Dana has focused her artistic attention on conveying the spirit of Kery’s natural environment. Winder’s Irish landscape paintings speak not only of the physical beauty of Co Kerry but also her personal connection with the landscape and it’s plants.
Scenes from near Dana Winder’s home in Castlecove, County Kerry feature prominently in her work. The dramatic West of Ireland landscape—rugged mountains with purple slate, an ever-changing Atlantic coastline that shifts from wild and stormy to calm and still, expansive boglands rich in plants and native trees—offers a constant source of inspiration.
As one of today’s contemporary Irish landscape artists, Dana has focused for many years on capturing the atmosphere and mood of these places in oil on canvas. Her plein air paintings reflect a deep connection to the land and the unique character of the Kerry landscape.
Examples of her plein air work can be viewed in the Gallery https://danawinder.com/contemporary-paintings-gallery/
Paintings of Ireland
Landscapes Painted on location in Ireland
