Louise McKeon
Born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary Louise grew up in Dublin. She benefitted from a north/south education attending schools in Fermanagh & Dublin. She began her art career at The Art College, Belfast. Following this, she entered The National College of Art & Design in Dublin, graduating in Graphic Design while specializing in illustration.
On moving to Japan with her husband, (1987 – 1990) Louise started to paint full-time. She has exhibited extensively in Ireland & Japan and to-date has held numerous sell-out one woman shows. Group exhibitions include the Kansai International Show, Kobe, Japan and the Japan Exhibition at the Crawford Gallery, Cork.
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Louise is a painter; she is not attached to any particular school, deriving ideas, tastes and styles from various sources. She paints in a mixed medium of watercolour, acrylic and gouache on a variety of hand-made papers, but in particular Japanese handmade paper called ‘Washi’. Each piece of paper has its own unique character which dictates the painting technique and subject matter, with the result that some of the paintings are detailed while others work more specifically with the colour and texture of the paper. Her painting is primarily influenced by the Irish countryside and its rich colour and people.
Her work is held in public and private collections. Louise has undertaken commissions for RTE and the Irish Food Writers Guild.For more than 20 years, Louise has been an avid teacher of art to children and adults alike.
“At her best Louise McKeon translates a Japanese delicacy of detail into the Irish vernacular. She notices the small things in a landscape the perfect reflection of a rusty gatepost in a muddy puddle or the contrasting texture of a rotting piece of wood perched on an old stone wall. But she can also handle bigger things, notably maritime skies which are usually grey & stormy, caught at that moment when the sun shines on the foreground as a storm approaches from behind. Her work is remarkable for its spontaneity & its unsentimental celebration of the visual pleasures of this part of the world”
- Alannah Hopkin, The Sunday Times