Like so many children, Rosemarie Ann Devereux fell head over heels in love with art pretty much from the moment she learnt how to appreciate colour.

Her family had art books “all over the house”, whilst any trips abroad meant a visit to each and every art museum in town.

It would be many years later – when her own art-loving children were all grown up and flying solo – that Rosemarie finally indulged in that lifelong passion by heading off to college to study art appreciation. Seven and a half years later, Ms Devereux had gone from a diploma to a masters, and a whole new chapter of her life had suddenly blossomed.

It was a chapter that was helped somewhat by volunteering at the Irish Gallery of Ireland, giving this wide-eyed lover of art a chance to study up close and all alone not only some of the most celebrated paintings ever produced but many works that glittered brightly in their shadows.

“It was like being invited in behind the curtain, to meet The Wizard,” says Rosemarie today, as we settle down to a sunny afternoon coffee break at Enso. “Being alone with a great painting is intoxicating, as though you’re now on a date with this remarkable, endlessly fascinating and revealing person. And that’s the feeling I want to get across in these two six-week courses. That sense of wonder, but also that sense of a deep connection with a painting…”

The course in question is The Visual Story Of Ireland, a course that covers the foundations of Irish art, whilst a second course, Story Of Europe: Painting History will look at the artistic movements that swept Europe between 1400 and the early 20th century. Running at The Whale on Wednesdays at 7.30pm and Thursdays at 10.30am from October 7th and 29th respectively, Rosemarie is hitting the ground running here, having run the former course at the National Gallery of Ireland. “Being able to bring this all home,” she smiles, “and in such an inspiring setting as The Whale once again, well, it’s brought these classes to a whole new level…”

You can find out more about The Visual Story Of Ireland right about here, and Story Of Europe right over here. In the meantime, we talk to Rosemarie about digging beneath the surface paint…

You can find both of Rosemarie’s courses, and plenty of other artistic thrills and spills, right about here. This interview originally appeared in October 2019.