Welcome to the opening shoreline to my first book, Seescapes; channelling the creative flux of a life with more twists and turns than a river steadily making its way to the ocean. My name is Stíobhard Cristíona – Irish author/artist specializing in an insightful infusion of writing and painting encompassing three books containing over two hundred oil on canvas paintings. I love to landscape stories around pictures, the relationship between self-expression and life experience is central to my art practice. Pictures bring an extra dimensionality to a story, opening doorways difficult to unlock with words alone. Above all this creative venture strives to channel a sacred spatiality, the most important element in every story. If you are interested in art, shadow work, biography, social commentary and the direction our collective journey is taking, the right place has surely found you.

Preface

With so much information flying about it is becoming increasingly difficult to decipher truth from lies. One porky pie sent through cyber space can virtually incarcerate billions. Everyone is cooking up something, a vast menu of mistruth is constantly being served. There are enlightened lies and there are illusory porky pies. There are religious lies and there are secular porky pies. There are clever lies and there are plain stupid porky pies. There are lies that’ll make us feel like winners, and porky pies to mask the painful loss. Gustave Le Bon said it best, “The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.” Such quotes I know won’t score high in certain circles, especially the totally rigged game playing itself out in social media today.

In the casino of what passes for free speech nowadays, it pains to watch so many eyeballs on the roulette wheel of whatever left-wing or right-wing spin cycle is doing the rounds. Falsehood has grown to such biblical proportions it has mutated into the fiercest of all mythological creatures. For good reason the gatekeepers guard against voices armed with revelation entering the conversation. They know the sword of truth will slay the dragon, cutting a pathway through the shitstorm awash with mistruths running amuck. A perfect segue into the windswept backdrop of a west of Ireland town teetering on the verge of a violent downpour. A tempestuous setting replicated on the global stage where legions of vampiric actors are hellbent on ushering another dark chapter into the human story. The world engulfed in darkness has yet to unsheathe the vision of an oceanic truth.