Dublin-based Leah Hewson was half a decade out of art college before she began to think seriously about abstract art. An internship at Sean Scully’s New York studio, where she also observed the abstract painting practice of Liliane Tomasko, was followed by a transformative residency at the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn in 2018, and residencies in Dublin and Berlin, where she honed her distinctive, vibrant Pop-Op-Art style. “Somewhere along the way it clicked with me that if you take the figure out of the painting you can get closer to it. I think it’s about connecting with people in an unspoken way, something that can’t be articulated necessarily.”

Her paintings are known for their street-art influenced, trompe l’oeil style neon tube effect. “I’ve always loved optical art. I did my thesis on the importance of visual perception and how the eye is tricked, so there’s this little skip of something. It makes you question reality. I think that’s where this luminosity, faking the idea of light in a painting, comes from.” Her interest now is in the subconscious. She paints while listening to music – previously “bangin’ techno”, more recently jazz – and has multiple paintings on the go at any one time. “I hear artists talk about how fearful they are of the white canvas but part of my process is to be defiant against that and just go for it and trust that whatever’s going down is the right thing. The work is really layered. There have been paintings that haven’t resonated with people that I’ve gone completely over again. I’m never too precious about them existing if the world doesn’t want them to exist. I’m like, well, let’s give it a new life.” Her painting practice is “impulsive and intuitive”. “There’s always one I call the humbling painting. That’s the one that isn’t working and it’s the one that really keeps you on your toes.” 

Hewson grew up in Wicklow just outside Dublin. “I think in a general sense, even outside of being an artist, I’ve always been trying to find myself in the world. As soon as I was able to move away from the countryside I did, and I’ve been in the city ever since. It’s had an influence on the way I want to live my life, which has also had an influence on my work.” Travel to cities has also meant opportunities to see more art in person. “In New York, you have access to all this art you’ve only ever seen in books. In Berlin, the Hamburger Bahnhof is one of my favourite places.” And it’s been true even closer to home. “In college in Dublin, I remember very distinctly seeing the work of Alice Maher for the first time, when she had the huge chalk drawings on the walls in the RHA, and Corban Walker in the Green on Red Gallery. Coming from Wicklow, I remember thinking there’s exciting things happening here!” 

Hotel art collections have long played a unique role in supporting artists by establishing a deliciously intimate, yet public canon of contemporary art. In Ireland, Hewson’s work can be found on walls across the The Dean. “Paintings, print, Perspex work, depending on what I’ve been doing at the time. They’ve followed me through my career, which has been really nice. When I get repeat clients that means the work has resonated in some way where they want to come back for more, and in that sense it’s very gratifying. And when it’s a local hotel, they’re obviously trying to get a good representation of what the visual art being made here now looks like. It’s really great to be asked to be part of that landscape.” With outstanding works by emerging, mid-career and established artists, from Salvatore of Lucan, Thaís Muniz, Chloe Early and Ruth Medjber to Eamon Coleman, Diana Copperwhite, Cian McLoughlin, Tom Climent and the late, great Patrick Scott, there’s real joy to be found in wandering the corridors of a hotel with a landscape as exceptionally curated as that.