Arthur Maderson is recognised as being one of the 'finest figurative painters' in Ireland today. He talks openly in this extract from an interview with Elizabeth McGuane, about being intoxicated by the act of painting and the inspiration behind his work. (Sunday Tribune, 2 December 2007).

Maderson paints figurative scenes in oils and mixed media, and has been recognised as one of the best painters working in the medium today. It's obvious that his work is as personal to him as any of the most avant-garde contemporary art.

Maderson studied in Camberwell in London in the early 60s, winning major awards in his youth. He took the Anna Berry award, offered to a final year graduate from all the leading art schools in England, in 1963. But despite this, Maderson didn't follow a straight road to a successful career. Though he kept painting regularly, he went on to spend nine and a half years as an art therapist at a psychiatric hospital.

When Maderson began exhibiting in 1980, he was 40 years old, and so his success –with every major solo show sold out—hasn't brought him down his studio to the city. He prefers to divide his year between Waterford and his home in the mountains of Cevennes, in the South of France. The paintings that come out of his time in France versus those painted in Ireland are, understandably, quite different, but Maderson doesn't prefer one place over the other.

"Different places generate different types of paintings, so I'm inspired by whatever I see in the place I'm in," he said, "whether it's the greyish world of Ireland or the lighter world of France. I'm intoxicated by the act of painting, by the sorts of qualities that paint can convey." Joan Clancy Gallery exhibits Maderson's work regularly.