Megan O'Beirne |
Hard edge abstract art and flamenco oil paintings on canvas |
All art work copyright (c) 2001-2005 Megan O'Beirne.
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| Photographs | Biography | Reading | Links |
How to buy the art workAll paintings are original artist's work. They are unframed unless otherwise stated. Photographs are mounted on 10mm foamboard ready for hanging. I am available for commissions and offers from personal or corporate buyers. Terms and conditions: All prices are ex-studio and exclude shipping and insurance. Prices are subject to change without notice; remember that the web page is current as of a certain date and the art work may be sold and therefore unavailable by the time your request arrives to me. For an inclusive quotation, please
email me at
Prices are rounded to convenient amounts. For today's currency exchange rates, please refer to this online euro conversion calculator. GuaranteeIf you are not fully satisfied with the art, you may return it in original condition up to 30 days after dispatch for a full refund of the art work price i.e. excluding shipping and insurance costs. My AddressVilla Alba, Tara Hill, Gorey, County Wexford, Ireland |
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| Click an image to open a new window with an enlarged picture |
 'Apparatus' 137x102cm |
 'Endline' 102x102cm |
 'Separation' 102x102cm |
 'Anonymity' 56x56cm |
 'Stack' 56x56cm |
"1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005 |
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Artist's statement 2005 2005 was the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps where millions of innocent Jewish men women and children died at the hands of the Nazis. Witnessing through media coverage the systematic cruelty of segregation, death, and torture meted out to the Jewish people elicited a response from me as an artist. Documentary evidence of "The final solution" is vast. My aim is narrow and focuses on certain details in an abstract way that eliminates distraction in a series of pared-down images: railway tracks that converge forceps-like; lines of drainage - channels on dissecting tables; the wheel, a central image of the degrading transport wagons. I was aware of how sometimes images can transcend their grim associations. Uneasy contradictions emerge where these images can appear beautiful when abstracted from their context - a stack on a crematorium can pierce the sky with something like elegance. Mere outlines portray the starkness of the brutal regime; they are a metaphor for the wasting of the rich resource of almost an entire people. |
Artist's statement 2004The focus of the paintings is the curve in its simplicity, the hard edge announcing the soft curves in ambiguous play. Stripped of a context, the abstracted curve is a rich metaphor for gradual transition of time and state. Colour is used both to dramatise and partially obscure the curve which governs our lives so completely and satisfyingly.
"Watermark" donated to Hopewire auction for Tsunami relief, Bunclody, 30 Jan 2005. Acrylics and oil glaze on prepared paper, 39x56 cm, 66x82 cm (26x32") including mount and frame.
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Recently on show at the Garter Lane Gallery,
Waterford, Two of these were selected for the Éigse exhibition, Carlow, June 2004 |
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| GeoMorph series
Titled: "Curve" Price €4,800 for the complete set of 8 |
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Review2004 saw the emergence of an element that became hugely significant for the artist – the curved line. This curved line has found its way through all ages into the marks made on the environment – from the tools of primitive cultures to the curves of modern architecture. Here we are led into the current body of work, the Geomorph Series. The artist notes that ‘the curved line calls to mind the artefacts of primitive man – the boat, the wheel, the arc of a bow, the cusped moon of Bronze Age sacred disks’. The curved line of nature symbolises transience, the passing from one stage to another, and it is from this that the artist finds inspiration. Jackie Ryan, Art Historian, 2004
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Paintings in the modern art work Exit/Entrance series
On view Sep-Oct 2003 at the Tinahely
Courthouse Gallery
as part of the KUBE Art group exhibition
"Exits/Entrances Diptych 1,2" Acrylics and oils on board
76cm x 56cm x 2 The hard-edge modern art painting series "Exits/Entrances" depicts formally organised spaces. The viewer is invited to "enter" these unthreatening spaces to find rest and a visual environment for contemplation. This work evolved from a set of abstract paintings inspired by the ’Flamenco Mass’ of guitarist Paco Pena. Those pieces were large, expressionist and perhaps marked the end of an era for me! Building on that theme , I started to work on the notion of the exclusion of the Flamenco culture from mainstream society. Images of exclusion / exclusivity / containment gave way to a more broad-based theme of open and closed or exit / entrance. It was lighter and more ambiguous. Possibly influenced by my interest in architectural subjects, the work became hard-edged but gentle in allusion; verticals and right angles provide the scaffolding / steps / doors which suggest both interior and exterior spaces. There are two sets of four paintings each , one ‘cool’, one ‘hot’ – complementary in the sense that we long for cool order while basking in intense heat, with due regard to the metaphorical reading too. |
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 Cool 1 |
 Cool 4 |
 Hot 3 |
 Hot 4 |
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Underlying this work is a belief in the capacity of
art to create its own world and in the expressive capacity of paint as a carrier
of feeling.
This work was inspired by the music of Paco Pena, the renowned Spanish flamenco guitarist. Specific to my work is his Misa Flamenca - an adaptation of flamenco music to the Christian liturgy of the Mass. Ideally my work would capture the essence of Flamenco culture and its metaphorical implications for the Christian story. In developing the work I allowed my subconscious to determine the resolution of problems posed. The paintings are also about the act of painting itself, its gestural rhythms and of course the glory of colour. I am interested in the capacity of art to help us transcend the immediate concerns of life; through the combined power of colour, form and expressiveness of marks. I believe it can induce mental states, stimulate memory and ease the heart. |
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Books on Flamenco from Amazon
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NightBloom |
Firebloom |
Cordero de Dios / The Lamb € 1500 |
Flamenco 1 |
Misa Flamenca |
Pentimento
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Flamenco paintings are oil & acrylic on paper on ply 69x102 cms and American box
framed. The above paintings were on view at the art exhibition in the Mermaid Art Gallery, Bray, Co. Wicklow from 21 June to 24 July 2003. |
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Flamenco music selections from Amazon
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| October 2002 Oil Paintings "Flamenco" series | |||
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Luz de Luz / Light |
 Dolors / Mary's silence |
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 Saeta / Acceptance |
Nos Dio su sangre / Scapegoat |
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| Sample photographs from my solo black-and-white photographic exhibition "Giochi di Luce (Play of Light)" (Treviso, Italy and Wicklow, Ireland) are on display on the photos page. | |||
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Pictured beside some of her work at the official opening of the Healing Arts Trust art exhibition in Wexford General Hospital October 2002 |
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