Megan O'Beirne

Hard edge abstract art and flamenco oil paintings on canvas

All art work copyright (c) 2001-2005  Megan O'Beirne.  Email to megano at meganobeirne dot com  

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How to buy the art work

All 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 with the title of the piece you are interested in, stating your full name, address, telephone number, and preferred mode of shipping (or collect). Bank drafts and personal cheques (checks) must be cleared before the paintings are delivered. Do not send cash in the post.  I regret that I cannot process credit cards.

 Prices are rounded to convenient amounts. For today's currency exchange rates, please refer to this online euro conversion calculator.

Guarantee

If 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 Address

Villa Alba, Tara Hill, Gorey, County Wexford, Ireland

 

Click an image to open a new window with an enlarged picture
'Apparatus' 137x102cm

'Apparatus' 137x102cm

'Tracks' 102x102cm

'Endline' 102x102cm

'Separation' 102x102cm

'Separation' 102x102cm

'Anonymity' 56x56cm

'Anonymity' 56x56cm

'Stack' 56x56cm

'Stack' 56x56cm

"1945-2005" series

Oils on canvas

2005

 "1945-2005" series shown at "On...line" with the Kube art group at the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2005
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 2004

The 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, acrylics and oil glaze on prepared paper, 39x56 cm, 2005

"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.

 

Recently on show at the Garter Lane Gallery, Waterford,
as part of the KUBE Art group exhibition

Two of these were selected for the Éigse exhibition, Carlow, June 2004

 GeoMorph  series

 Titled: "Curve"
   1 to 8

Price €4,800 for the complete set of 8

Curve 1 Oil on canvas 56 x 56 cm Curve 2 Oil on canvas 56 x 56 cm
Curve 3 Oil on canvas 56 x 56 cm Curve 4 Oil on canvas 56 x 56 cm Curve 5 Oil on canvas 56 x 56 cm
Curve 6 Oil on canvas 56 x 56 cm Curve 7 Oil on canvas 56 x 56 cm Curve 8 Oil on canvas 56 x 56 cm

Review

2004 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

 

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  (c) 2003 Megan O'Beirne

"Exits/Entrances Diptych 1,2" Acrylics and oils on board 76cm x 56cm x 2
Price on application.

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.

 Exit-Entrance series "Cool 1" oils on canvas 52 x 69 cms 

Cool 1

 Exit-Entrance series "Cool 4" oils on canvas 52 x 69 cms

Cool 4

 Exit-Entrance series "Hot 3" oils on canvas 52 x 69 cms

Hot 3

 Exit-Entrance series "Hot 4" oils on canvas 52 x 69 cms

Hot 4

 
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. 


Books on Flamenco from Amazon  

   

 


NightBloom  Acrylic on board 56x76 cm price 750 euro

NightBloom
€ 750


Firebloom  Acrylic on board 56x76 cm price 750 euro

Firebloom
€ 750


Cordero de Dios / Innocence : oil & acrylic on paper on ply 69x102 cms 
Cordero de Dios  /
The Lamb € 1500
"Flamenco 1"  dimensions 69x102cms acrylic and oils on paper on ply (Flamenco pictures series 2002)

Flamenco 1
€1500

"Misa Flamenca"  dimensions 69x102cms acrylic and oils on paper on ply (Flamenco pictures series 2002)

Misa Flamenca
N.F.S.


"Pentimento" dimensions 69x102cms acrylic and oils on paper on ply (Flamenco pictures series 2002)

Pentimento
€1500

 

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.

Flamenco music selections from Amazon 

   

 
October 2002 Oil Paintings "Flamenco" series
 

  Luz de Luz /  Light : oil & acrylic on paper on ply 69x102 cms

Luz de Luz / Light

  Dolors / Mary's silence : oil & acrylic on paper on ply 69x102 cms
Dolors / Mary's silence
 
 
  Saeta / Acceptance : oil & acrylic on paper on ply 69x102 cms

Saeta / Acceptance

Nos Dio su sangre / Scapegoat  : oil & acrylic on paper on ply 69x102 cms 
Nos Dio su sangre / Scapegoat
     
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.

Megan at the Healing Arts Trust art exhibition in Wexford General Hospital

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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Last updated October 13, 2006

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