Megan O'Beirne, visual artist, member of ArtKube.com

Megan O'Beirne

 

Visual artist, member of Kube Art Group

  Artist's statement 2005

This year is 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.

  Originally from Dublin, I now live and have my studio in the South East of Ireland. A wide interest in literature, Irish, English, and Italian and some years residence in Italy (researching for an M.A.) are among the bedrock influences in my artistic life. Years of exhibiting my art at an amateur level led to a five year course in Fine Art in Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design, and Technology (DLIADT) from which I graduated in painting and photography.

 

  'Tracks' 102x102cm

'Tracks'

'Anonymity' 56x56cm

'Anonymity'

'Stack' 56x56cm

'Stack'

'Apparatus' 137x102cm

'Apparatus'

 

Click on a thumbnail above to view a larger image below.

 

'Tracks' 102x102cm "1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005

'Tracks' 102x102cm "1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005

 

 		 'Anonymity' 56x56cm "1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005

'Anonymity' 56x56cm "1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005

 

 

 		 'Stack' 56x56cm "1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005

'Stack' 56x56cm "1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005

 

 

 'Apparatus' 137x102cm "1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005

'Apparatus' 137x102cm "1945-2005" series Oils on canvas 2005

 

Personal Web Site : www.meganobeirne.com

  Recent Exhibitions

2005 July-Sept Kilkenny Arts Festival Kube group show
2004 March Garter lane Waterford. Kube group show
2003 Sep-Oct KUBE exhibition at the Courthouse Arts Centre Tinahely, Co. Wicklow
2003 Jun-Jul Mermaid Arts Centre Gallery, Bray, Co. Wicklow, "ENGRAMS" Kube group exhibition
2003 Jun-Aug photographic exhibition "Tarry Easty - James Joyce in Trieste" at the James Joyce Centre, 35 Nth. Gt. George's St., Dublin 1
2003 Mar-Apr Wexford Arts Centre "ENGRAMS" Kube group exhibition
2003 March. 6 x 6 for Ireland. 70 Irish artists 411 Gallery. Hangzhou. May Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai China. Sponsored by Irish Consulate.
2002 Selected Art Exhibition, photographs, Wicklow Co. Council.
2002 Selected Art Exhibition, Wexford General Hospital, Healing Arts Trust.
2002 "Play of Light" art photographs exhibition at Arman, Treviso, Italy.
2001 Selected Art Exhibition, Wexford General Hospital Healing Arts Trust
2001 "Paintings for Pleasure" - a two-woman exhibition with Chris Atkins at the Bothán Bán Gallery, Ballymoney, Courtown, Co. Wexford
1999 Solo Exhibition at the Wexford Heritage Centre, Ferrycarraig, Co. Wexford.

Collections

2001 Office of Public Works (OPW) for the Department of Education "Omagh, August 1998" (oils on canvas, 3'x'5')
1996-2001 Private collections in Ireland, UK, and Spain.

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

 
   

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