welcome to
Joan Finnegan Art
Recipient of an Arts Council Agility Award 2023
Exhibiting at this year’s 142nd RUA exhibition, Ulster Museum, Belfast – October to January 2024
Images of work from my exhibition AS I SEE IT, Clifden Arts Festival, will be posted in the new few days.
I am an artist born and raised in Galway on the west coast of Ireland where I am based, and I hold a BA in Fine Art from ATU Galway.
My visual style is inspired by the rich and diverse world around me, not just physically, but how it affects me psychologically. I use the visual elements to influence but not dictate my paintings, using them as points of departure to tell my own visual story.
I work in acrylics and each painting is a snapshot of a captured memory, or a feeling, and the colours and shapes that these memories or feelings evoke. The painting then develops organically from there, the memories distilled as it develops on my easel.
By simplifying the shapes and elements of the landscape, and using bold colours, there is a sense of mystery and ambiguity to my work, drawing viewers into a world of abstraction while captivating the imagination.
I am collaborating with Connemara Carpets, an artisan of handmade wool and silk rugs and wall-hangings, creating a series of wall-hangings for their new collection.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
September 2023 – ‘As I See It’- Clifden Arts Festival
Summer 2022 – ‘Sunchyme’ Shorelines Arts Festival
Summer 2019 – ‘Connemara Chroma’, Wisconsin, USA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
142nd Annual Royal Ulster Academy exhibition, Ulster Museum, Belfast October to January 2024
Summer Open, Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Summer 2023
Outset Gallery, December 2022
GALWAY EMERGES, Galway International Arts Festival Summer 2022 at the Kenny Gallery, Galway
REGENERATION, Clifden Arts Festival, September
Engage Studios Summer Show part of Galway International Arts Festival
Summer Exhibition Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, 2022
Artist’s Eye – Exhibition and Publication – July 2022
Follow me on Instagram where you can see my new work as it is created. http://www.instagram.com/joni_finnegan
About Joan
Latest News
Gallery
“The visual harmonies of Joan Finnegan’s paintings stem from the elegantly inter-locking forms that make up their compositions and her judicious sense of colour. She works from specific sources (…) but rather than illustrating her sources, she uses them as points of departure to devise her own pleasing visual constructions.”
Aidan Dunne, Art Critic, Irish Times
Joan Finnegan Art
Connemara Chroma
Solo exhibition 2019 for ‘Galway Showcase’ which was inspired by the beauty and colours of Connemara.
Joan Finnegan is a painter who is inspired by the world around her. Her paintings originate from all sources; from photographs taken of the Great Plains, to an image of an old stepwell in India, to the environment around her daily. Read more about Joan’s professional work below.
Joan Finnegan Art
The Stepwell
Series
Series
An image I came across of the elegant and impressive Chand Baori stepwell in
Abhaneri in India sparked this series.
