Artist Details

Geraldine O'Reilly

Portfolio

Royal Canal at Hyde Park

 

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My work relates to landscape. I’m either working directly outdoors painting or drawing or I’m extracting ideas and stories from researches relating to a particular landscape. Over the years I’ve noticed my artwork always has a
narrative of sorts and I like to think that the narrative is the line I peg the images on. In my first major exhibition Journal I worked on a series based on emigrant letters from the 1840’s to 1930’s trying to reflect the social and political landscape of those times in Ireland. In a later
exhibition titled Land Marks I looked at how the history of conflict in the border regions of Ireland can be read through the various fortifications and monuments that dot that particular landscape.

Based now in Westmeath, I take
my walks on the benign banks of the Royal Canal. I’ve developed a fascination on how this failed mode of transportation fits as if it is a naturally occurring waterway in the landscape. Over time it has converted itself into a
vast nature reserve and a walker’s paradise. It opens up the closed midland landscape in a way never intended. It is this ‘constructed landscape’ that I’m exploring in order to create new artwork for this exhibition.

Geraldine O’Reilly works in the medium of painting, drawing, print making and photography. She has had many one person exhibitions as well as participating in hundreds of group exhibitions. Her work is represented in many public and private collections. In 2004 she was elected a member of Aosdana. She is a former chairperson of the Graphic Studio Dublin. She lives and works in County
Westmeath.