Leah Beggs abstract style of landscape painting is driven by her intuitive use of paint and her love of mark making. She creates multi-layered paintings about memories or experiences that evoke a sense of varying emotions. Being as much about the medium of paint and the process of painting as well as an interpretation of her surrounding landscape. Preferring to work on large canvases, her technique involves starting with a ground of thinned-out washes of oil paint. With thicker more opaque paint she will paint out certain areas, or enhance others, constantly editing, until a composition begins to emerge. This creates a build-up of soft layers that result in an illusion of texture and eventually develop into an abstracted view of the landscape. The more you look at them, the more entities you see, resulting in a different take on it each time.
A graduate of Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design in Dublin, she currently lives and works in Connemara. Recent solo exhibitions include Solomon Fine Art, Dublin (Feb 2024 (forthcoming), Feb 2022, Jan 2019, Sept 2016 & Oct 2014), The Market Place Arts Centre Armagh (Jan 2013) The Kenny Gallery Galway (Feb 2009) The Linenhall Arts Centre Castlebar (May 2009) and The Signal Arts Centre Bray (Sept 2009) . She is a founding member of uachtarARTS, a community arts group in Oughterard, Co. Galway. In 2011, 2013 & 2017 she was awarded an Individual Artist Bursary from Galway County Council, and a purchase prize from the 2013 DLR Open Submission and an Agility Award from the Arts Council 2023. Her work forms part of various collections in Ireland including The Dean Hotel Galway, Trinity College Dublin, IBEC, The Doyle Hotel Collection, Deloitte Art Collection, Savills Ireland, Garda HQ, Office of the Revenue Commissioners, An Bord Pleanála, Microsoft Irish Art Collection, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (DLR), Charleville Hotel Rathmines and The Stephens Hall Hotel Leeson Street. In 1998 & 2000, Leah was commissioned by the Office of Public Works to develop ten specific pieces which hang in the National Concert Hall and the Department of the Taoiseach respectively.
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