KENNETH WEBB | Shards of Heaven
Oil on Canvas
92 x 122 cms / 36 x 48 inches
Signed Webb (lower left)
In Shards of Heaven, Kenneth Webb draws on fifty years of inspiration from the peatlands surrounding his Ballinaboy Studio in Connemara. Captivated by the ancient Derrygimla Bog, Webb transforms its turf-cut scars into vessels of colour. Rain-filled trenches reflect the sky in shards of blue, green, and orange, like stained glass. Juxtaposing manmade incisions with nature’s quiet reclamation, this painting becomes a radiant meditation on memory, landscape, and transformation.
Kenneth and his wife Joan purchased their cottage in Connemara in 1972, and this place - now known as the Ballinaboy Studio - has offered a multitude of inspiration to Kenneth for over fifty years. When he first arrived, Kenneth was captivated by the fourteen miles of blanket bog stretching to the harbour at Roundstone. Steeped in history, the Derrygimla Bog is home to ancient trackways and prehistoric remnants, anchoring Kenneth’s work in a deeply storied landscape.
Cut deep into the earth, the ancient peat bogs of Connemara bear the visible traces of centuries of labour, manmade trenches and ridges where turf has been carved from the land. In Shards of Heaven, Kenneth transforms these scars into something unexpectedly radiant. These scars, filled by rain and fed from beneath, act as mirrors - quiet and still, yet alive with colour and light. They become vessels of light, reflecting the sky above in brilliant, refracted hues. Blues and aquamarines burst across the composition like panes of stained glass, interwoven with volcanic orange, deep plum, and acid green.
The energy of the painting lies in the contrast between human intervention and nature’s quiet reclamation. Kenneth’s eye is drawn to the dissonance between sharp manmade lines and the organic movement of water and cloud, a contrast that defines the visual rhythm of the composition. In Connemara, where bog, sky and sea blur at the edges, such moments are frequent, fleeting, and utterly captivating.
This painting is one of revelation. As with so much of Kenneth’s work, the subject is not simply the land itself but the feeling it evokes, the light it holds, the stories it tells, the transformation it makes possible. Shards of Heaven captures that alchemy. From the cut earth rises a celebration of beauty, resilience, and the ever-changing dance between man, land and sky.
