CCA Derry~Londonderry Roundtable Podcast #12: Artist discussion on abstract painting practice in Northern Ireland

Invited participant in CCA Derry~Londonderry Roundtable Podcast #12, a recorded discussion focusing on contemporary abstract painting practices in Northern Ireland. Drawing on practice-led research, Robinson contributed reflections on painting as an embodied and materially responsive process, situating her work within broader discussions on abstraction, material agency, and the lived conditions of painting practice.

The discussion considers painting in relation to questions of volume, support, and bodily engagement with material, alongside the shared use of primary colour systems across the participating artists’ practices. Robinson reflects on painting as a process in which form emerges through physical accumulation and resistance, where surface and support operate in tension with expanded, often sculptural conditions of making. Within this context, painting is understood not as a fixed image but as an active material field shaped by handling, pressure, and instability.

A significant strand of the conversation addresses the experiential and embodied qualities of abstraction, including the role of touch, care, and perceptual proximity in encountering painted surfaces. Robinson discusses her interest in works that solicit a sensory response beyond visual apprehension, where material density and surface irregularity generate a form of “felt” viewing. This extends into a broader consideration of how abstraction operates through affective and bodily registers rather than purely optical ones.

The conversation also situates painting within labour histories and inherited material knowledge, reflecting on how artistic practice is shaped by familial and social contexts of making. Robinson identifies painting as a form of sustained labour in which repetition, endurance, and physical engagement are central to process.

A further key theme is the question of authorship and control within painting processes, particularly where material behaviour exceeds intentional direction. Robinson reflects on the productive instability of paint as a medium, where chance operations, material resistance, and surface unpredictability contribute to the final work. Rather than being resolved in advance, paintings are understood as evolving through iterative encounters between material, support, and environment.

The discussion also considers the expanded conditions of contemporary abstraction in Northern Ireland, particularly the visibility of women painters working within and against established historical narratives of post-war abstraction. The exchange situates individual practices within a shared set of concerns around materiality, process, and the ongoing negotiation of painting’s relevance as a contemporary form.

Contributors: Susan Connolly, Ciarraí MacCormac, Yasmine Robinson.
CCA Derry~Londonderry Roundtable Podcast #12, 2026.