Felim Egan
Felim Egan was born in Ireland in 1952. He didn't come from a family of artists nor was there any interest in art in the household and his art classes at school were always on Saturday so he had to make an effort - particularly as school was in Derry, some 15 miles from his home.
Egan grew up in Strabane, Co Tyrone, and studied in Belfast and Portsmouth before attending the Slade School of Art in London. He spent a year at the British School in Rome in 1980 before returning to Dublin where he has since lived and worked at Sandymount Strand on the edge of Dublin Bay. His paintings are created by mixing his paint with ground stone and resin and then brushing it upon the canvas until the acrylic dries.
His work forms around quite abstract images, and yet his work is tied to place, to the long horizons, big skies and empty sands of the Strand and sea beside his studio. Though not a landscape painter he will admit that the Sandymount Strand would have influenced him, he even illustrated a book by Seamus Heaney, The Strand (1995). His work has developed since incorporating wood, metal and neon strips into his paintings which can be seen in the ‘The Battle of Herculeus & Antaeus’.
