If there is an underlying unity to the exceptional stylistic diversity of Tim Goulding's work as a painter it surely has to do with his experience of nature, and specifically his continuing source of inspiration--his home on the wild and remote Beara Peninsula in West Cork. The fact that landscape, and in a wider sense, nature is usually at the heart of his work is beyond question.

Aidan Dunne. World of Hibernia. Winter 2000.

Tim has also explored it [Beara] in less obvious, less picturesque ways , and picked up on the regenerative symbolism of the practical but ritualistic activity of burning the gorse on the mountains, descending deep into the disused copper mines in the mountains behind the village, and looking closely at the worlds in miniature formed by the elements working inexorably on the fine-grained, weather-beaten landscape of stone and lichens. These are his subjects in works that could be interpreted as abstract, and to an extent are so, without severing an essential link to the textures and processes of nature.

Aidan Dunne. World of Hibernia. Winter 2000 ,

THE HEARTLAND SERIES

While the the themes of his paintings vary, and he experiments now and then with technique, he has developed a compelling style which can rise with a swell into realism, and sudside again into abstraction without losing it's consistency: and can be seen as the natural succession in Irish Art to the work of George Russell in that it represents an inner landscape at the same time as being true to what is visible to the eye.

Hilary Pyle, Irish Times. 1989

STONE CIRCLE SERIES

The megaliths and stone circles, painted in pale greys and greens are a surge back into the past, uniting the painter's present day world with that of a mysterious history. The circles are not sharply defined, the megaliths are lichen-encrusted, subjecting them to the warmth of time where humankind has left it's mark, possessing, for a brief period, the earth which Goulding colours to our inner eye.

Kate Robinson, Sunday Independent

SONGS OF THE EARTH

Gouldings perceptions unite person and earth within the same sphere ,so these paintings can be seen as metaphor or interpretation of emotions that flow through and invigorate life itself while hinting at destructive forces which are an intrinsic element in the processes of creation.

Kate Robinson

He leaves himself open to chance and change like a house with a door left open to whoever might be passing on the road...He is one of our finest artists.

Sean Dunne, the late poet

FACING DARKNESS SEEING LIGHT

The body of work in 'Facing Darkness Seeing Light' sees Goulding poised elegantly between realism and abstraction. On the one hand we have the seemingly pure abstraction of textured patterns, on the other the reality of a subterranean world pierced by shafts of light. For these paintings are set inside an abandoned copper mine lit by small fires and complicated arrangements of mirrors. Marble dust worked into the pigment augments the stony, gritty feel and the colours, subtle but saturated and rich, seep out of the shadows and burst into iridescent light.

Aidan Dunne, Irish Times

AS ABOVE SO BELOW

For over 30 years Tim Goulding immersed himself in the landscape around the West Cork village of Allihies, taking it's vivid colours and rugged textures as a template for his paintings This fascination continues in this latest show, as does his trademark treatments of imprinted paint and softly modelled grey mist. Yet it is to Goulding's credit that he has moved beyond the accepted to explore. From this standpoint, it is the newest work that engages the most, as the artist employs diptych and tiyptich formats, and allows an even greater quietude to emerge.

Mark Ewart, Irish Times. 1998