June 2022 - new paintings of Bóthar Buí by Sarah Walker.
The year 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of when the Walker family first came to Bóthar Buí. Renowned Irish Architect Robin Walker designed this incredible assemblage of farmhouses and contemporary modernistic structures, creating a beautiful, secluded holiday villa close to the village of Ardgroom. Bóthar Buí was one of four private houses Walker designed at the time and was included in the Irish Architecture Foundation exhibit at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2008.
The architecture of Bóthar Buí is spectacular while simultaneously at one with the quiet and calm in which it resides. Divided into six different buildings, the kitchen/dining room and living area, with a large open fireplace, is situated in the original farmhouse while the new buildings, modernist light filled structures, hold bedrooms and a grand living room (“the studio). These new buildings each have one wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and long balconies, placing the inner space out within the 12 acres of indigenous oak woodland. The woodland leads down to a small harbour and shoreline and holds an abundance of different mosses and various flora. Bóthar Buí holds within its walls the memory of a family growing and the celebrations that came with it. It has also been a sanctuary for numerous artists, writers, poets and musicians from all over the world. The essence of Bóthar Buí exists within the work of one such poet, Seamus Heaney, a good friend of Robin Walker and the family, in his poem Settings xiii.
Hazel stealth. A trickle in the culvert.
Athletic sealight on the doorstep slab,
On the sea itself, on silent roofs and gables.
These works on canvas by Sarah Walker capture the particular magic that is unique to Bóthar Buí
