Noelle McAlinden-Little Blue

Biography

Noelle Mc Alinden is a practicing artist exhibiting locally, regionally and internationally, with work in public and private collections across the UK, Europe, US and Canada. Noelle also works as a creative adviser, curator, arts educator, a former Head of Art and Design in a post-primary school and Senior Lecturer for Arts at Fermanagh College of Further Education. She teaches across a range of sectors including, primary, post primary, university and the prison Sector, and was an international artist in residence in University of Transylvania, Lexington, Kentucky as part of The Governors School of Art.

As an arts activist for almost 39 years, Noelle has worked across statutory and voluntary Youth and Community sectors. She is passionate about all artforms promoting visual and performing arts, moving image, film and digital literacy. She was Chair of Creative Youth Partnerships and served as Chair of The Forum for Local Government and the Arts. She is an active advocate for the arts supporting the development of artists and creatives promoting collaborative and strategic partnerships locally, regionally and internationally.

Noelle’s work varies in size, scale, subject matter and treatment, from large-scale oil paintings to small mixed media pieces on canvas. The work is vibrant in colour and texture that appeal strongly to the eye with work consisting of an extraordinarily vivid panorama of colour, light and imagery, abstract and semi representational. The work to date has evolved from the figurative/narrative tradition. The choice of subject matter and treatment of it has evolved in a logical development from previous solo exhibitions, Waterways of the mind, Out of the Blue, Eve–olution, Precious Cargo and Emotional Landscape.  

Abstract works are inspired by experiments with colour, texture, light and semi animated marks, traces of life that somehow continue to be figurative. The paintings in oils and acrylics cover surfaces and canvasses that have been distorted, distressed, layered with texture and colour, with fragments that have been constructed and deconstructed exposing colour beneath the surface.

Inspiration is drawn from who the artist is and where she has come from and where she is now, both the physical world the artist lives in and the private world within her that carries the precious cargo of the past and all its diverse, dynamic and evolving happenings, the magic of gained knowledge and personal insight. An Artist who has mined deeper with age, where with a love of emotive colour, scorched canvasses emerge, where blue tones and strong exotic tones collide, where inspiration is sought in everything and every experience, and where the artist paints large-scale as well as small, and welcomes the happy accident.

Noelle says “My work has evolved, it comes from my life, my soul, experiences, memory and imagination. Shaped, nourished by events and accidental happenings, family, friendship and a sense of place.”

Noelle is passionate about the power of the arts to transform communities, supporting Cultural Tourism, Economic Regeneration, Health and Wellbeing and Peace and Reconciliation. Noelle has taken early retirement from The Education Authority in Northern Ireland  and was formally involved in Derry  City of Culture and Derry Learning City. Noelle is involved in a number of Arts and Cultural Organisations and is  ambassador for the celebration of life and prevention of suicide with an all Island group of volunteers and is on the board of the Northern Ireland Arts and Mental Health Festival. Noelle works  for  Smashing Times, a Dublin based organisation doing stunning work across Arts, Health and education, the artistic Director is Mary Moynihan and Sabina Higgins is a key Patron. 

Noelle is a former Board Member of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland  and a  former Adviser for the Education Authority of Northern Ireland, a former member of Unlocking Creativity, a Government Strategy for Northern Ireland working with the late Sir Ken Robinson. Noelle is a  member of the Hope, Healthy Eating  and Growth steering group with the Aisling Centre Enniskillen, a Board Member of Northern Ireland Arts Mental Health Festival and a Creative Adviser for the Pushkin Trust.