KENNETH WEBB | Fire and Snow, Red Sky Sunset, Marconi Bog
Oil on Canvas
76 x 152 cms / 30 x 60 inches
In Fire and Snow, Red Sky Sunset, Marconi Bog, Kenneth Webb shifts focus from the storied surface of Connemara’s bogland to the vast, expressive sky above. Inspired by the historic Marconi site near his Ballinaboy studio, the work captures a sunset of almost operatic intensity. Crimson, amber, and violet collide above snowy ground, which reflects the sky’s heat and colour. This is a landscape where history, nature, and emotion converge in radiant equilibrium.
In Fire and Snow, Red Sky Sunset, Marconi Bog, Kenneth shifts his attention from the time ravaged surface of the Marconi Bog to the vast theatre above. This painting marks a powerful transition in perspective, a gaze turned skyward toward a drama that unfolds not in the bogland, but across the heavens.
The painting is inspired by the very landscape surrounding Kenneth’s Ballinaboy studio in Connemara, near the site of the Marconi Station, where the first transatlantic wireless message was sent in 1907, and where Alcock and Brown famously landed in 1919 after completing the first non-stop transatlantic flight. Here, history and nature converge beneath a sky ablaze. Sweeps of vermilion, crimson, amber and orange crash through a swirling mass of plum and violet, conjuring a moment of almost biblical intensity.
The boglands below absorb this atmospheric brilliance and reflect it back with a richness that belies the winter season. In the foreground, Kenneth has painted bold, textured swathes of snow, cool in hue but radiant in effect. The snow becomes a reflector of the fiery sky, intensifying the surrounding colours with heightened luminosity. This is not a cold scene, despite the subject matter; instead, the overall feeling is one of warmth with the heat of the sky permeating the land. One senses that this might be why Kenneth chose to paint this moment, the way in which snow catches and refracts the sky above with such clarity and brilliance.
As with all of Kenneth’s Connemara paintings, this is a landscape layered with meaning. The bogland is not just setting, but witness; the sky, not simply backdrop, but emotion itself. Here, warmth and wonder coexist, and beauty is made incandescent by contrast.
