Artists need to be nurtured and arts and tourism are complementary activities, newly-appointed member of the Arts Council, Ms Noelle Campbell-Sharpe, has said.
She was addressing the opening of an exhibition of artists from the Cill Rialaig artists' retreat project at Bolus Head near Ballinskelligs in Co Kerry.
Remote places in the south and west of Ireland were what Irish and international artists desired, she said.
"The very thing that destroyed these places was remoteness, but the remoteness is exactly what artists like," said Ms Campbell-Sharpe, founder of the Cill Rialaig project.
Some 16,500 Irish and international artists - many of high renown, had applied for a place in the deserted but now restored Famine village in Cill Rialaig.
This was a project that could be established in other parts of the country and much more attention should be paid to such remote areas.
Ireland, once known as the island of saints and scholars, could quite easily be
developed as the island of artists and writers in the European and international arts circles, she said at the opening of the exhibition in the Limetree Restaurant in Kenmare.
It was appropriate that the Minister for the Arts was also the Minister for Tourism, she said.
"By these artists coming we are opening up tourism as well to these areas," Ms Campbell-Sharpe said. The simple accommodation and dramatic surroundings at Cill Rialaig had an "incredible impact" on the artists who came to stay there, she added.
"Nobody pays to stay there. Nobody signs a form.
"The idea is no selling, no retailing, being able to live in a lovely principled community where there is no crime and where you can live with your doors open," said Ms Campbell-Sharpe.
Ms Ruth Schroer, a glass artist from Bonn in Germany, who is currently at Cill Rialaig, said she had heard about the project from the sculptor Helga Rostock.
There was no other place in Europe like it where artists of different nations were brought together in an easy, friendly environment that was yet inspirational to work in.
"Ireland is setting a standard," she said.
The exhibition of artists Colin O'Daly, Judy Hamilton, Christine Bowen and Helga Rostock, entitled "Cill Rialaig, Land, Sea, Fish and Sheep" continues until September 18th at the Limetree Restaurant.