Margaret Egan didn’t become a full-time artist until her four children had grown up, but since then she has earned a reputation for work which is both mystical and magnetic, all created in a tiny studio next to her period apartment home in south county Dublin
Artist Margaret Egan in the hall area of her garden apartment in south county Dublin. Photo: Tony Gavin
“A work of art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t art at all,” said Paul Cézanne, while Vincent van Gogh said: “I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘He feels deeply, he feels tenderly.’”
Both men have been dead over 100 years and their works are very different to those of artist Margaret Egan, yet she would heartily agree with those sentiments. Margaret also describes her paintings – which cover a multitude of subjects, including horses, people, music, landscapes, and more recently current events like the conflict in Gaza – as all about the feelings. In Margaret’s case, she talks about the feelings she has when doing the work and the feelings she wants to evoke in people looking at the finished result. “When you feel something about a painting, then it’s speaking to you, even if it’s really horrific.”