Elizabeth Magill facts for kids
Elizabeth Magill (born in 1959 in Ontario, Canada) is a talented Irish painter. She studied art at the Belfast College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. Today, she lives and works in London.
About Elizabeth Magill
Elizabeth Magill grew up in Northern Ireland. She started showing her artwork in the mid-1980s. She is a very creative painter who gets ideas from many different places. She often uses photographs in her paintings in new ways. While she has also explored video art, painting is her main focus.
Over the past few years, she has created a series of mysterious landscape paintings. These artworks often have a thoughtful or even slightly sad feeling. Her first big solo art show was at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol in 1990. That same year, her work was part of the important 'British Art Show'. This show helped introduce many new British artists to a wider audience.
Elizabeth Magill has had many solo exhibitions. These shows have been in Ireland, Britain, Germany, France, and Spain. Some notable places include the Southampton City Art Gallery in 1998 and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery in Dublin in 2003. She also had shows at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and the Baltic in Gateshead in 2004. She has also been a fellow at places like the Tate Liverpool.
A major solo exhibition called ‘Headland’ toured Ireland from 2017 to 2018. It was organized by the Limerick City Gallery of Art. The show also visited the RHA in Dublin and the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
Magill's artwork is part of many public and private collections around the world. These include the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, and the National Gallery of Australia.
Artistic Style and Methods
A main idea in Elizabeth Magill's art is creating "hauntingly distressed paintings of the landscape." For her recent work, she starts with a photograph. This photo is then scanned. The scanned image is sprayed onto a canvas. After that, she uses oils to add bright spots and make parts stand out.
Her style has been compared to the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840). He was known for his dramatic landscape paintings. Magill has explained her own work by saying: "I'm not so much painting what is there but what I imagine might be there... These works are not landscapes as such, but more like suggested backdrops to how I feel, think and interpret the world."
She is inspired by the glens (valleys) and coastline of Northern Ireland. This is where she spent most of her childhood. However, her landscapes often feel empty. They might show empty houses or electricity pylons. This gives a feeling of human absence and a quiet sense of being alone.
Exhibitions and Collections
Her first big solo exhibition was at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol in 1990. In the same year, she was part of the important 'British Art Show'. This show helped introduce many new British artists to the public.
She has had solo exhibitions in many places across Western Europe, including:
- 1998 - Southampton City Art Gallery
- 1999 - Kerlin Gallery
- 2002 - Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London
- 2003 - Artemis Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York
- 2003 - Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin
Magill has also held special fellowships at the Tate Liverpool and Saarlandisches Kunstlerhaus in Saarbrücken, Germany. Her art has been shown in several group exhibitions, such as:
- 2000 - 'Places in Mind', with Adam Chodzko and Stan Douglas, at Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast
- 2000 - 'Premio Michetti 2000' at Fondazione Michetti, Italy.
Her work is part of many public and private art collections worldwide. These include the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Arts Council of England, and the National Gallery of Australia.
