European Gallery
Oliver Sears Gallery
33 Fitzwilliam Street Upper, Dublin 2, D02TF82, Ireland
Tel: +353 1 644 9459
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Biographical Details
Katherine Boucher Beug’s work plays with opposites: the juxtaposition of skilled, precise drawing with physical mark-making; of theory-based use of colour with found materials; of exactly calculated compositions with spontaneous brush strokes. There is analysis within her paintings, but there is also a sense of play. There is precision, but also freedom. She describes the process of reconciling these elements as “juggling”.
Originally from Princeton, New Jersey, KBB has been living and working in County Cork, Ireland since 1971. She received a BA in English and Fine Art from Northwestern University and her dedication to both writing and visual arts has been a significant influence on her work.
She went on to study at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Hamburg with Professor Kurt Kranz who taught Joseph Alber’s colour theory and its practical uses in water-colour and oils. This too was a formative experience with reference to landscape, portraiture, still life and abstraction. During her time in Germany she followed a rigorous, disciplined course in drawing from ‘life’. These two components, colour theory and her daily drawing, formed the solid base from which she went on to explore work in many different media and with many different themes. In Hamburg she also studied lithography, which would eventually lead to her artist’s book, Thought Before Song, consisting of eight lithographs and eight of her own texts.
In 1971 KBB moved to Cork, Ireland where, in a sense, she continued her studies, by teaching drawing, colour theory and lithography at the Crawford College of Art. In 1973 she and her husband bought an old house in Dunderrow surrounded by agricultural land and a forest. The endless weave of roads and hedgerow, the ever changing skies, shifting light and shadows combined to form her aesthetic. It is here that they brought up their family and here that she has her spacious studio. Her first solo show was in 1973 and she has been exhibiting in Ireland and abroad since then.
Influenced by Joseph Beuys and Anselm Kiefer and Louise Bourgeois, she began an obsessive sketch book practice; the daily recording of observations and memories, feelings and dreams using collage, photographs, found materials and words. Through these books, she remains in touch with the raw, uncensored flow of ideas and emotions which underpin more finished images. She would later go on to teach workshops in Sketch Books and Creative Practice at the Crawford and University College Cork. In 2006 she curated an exhibition at the Fenton Gallery in Cork, called The Raw Not the Cooked giving established contemporary artists the opportunity to show the ‘work behind the work’.
Always interested in theatre, in the 1990s. KBB began working occasionally with set design. Then in the 2000s she began adding stages to her canvases, constructing little tables, and working with fabric. These experiments would eventually lead to an important aspect of her current practice, the Assemblages. These 3D collages are a crystallisation of all aspects of the work and have been compared to well-structured poems.
She has had regular solo shows since the seventies, interspersed with group shows, projects and residencies. One particularly interesting project was her animated film, Begin, developed from her drawings for the Poetry Project (2013). And, in 2017, she initiated Take Five, a major exhibition of contemporary art with four other artists, Vivienne Roche, Stefan Syrowatka, Sarah O’flynn and Charles Tyrell, at The Mill in Kinsale, County Cork.
Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions
2015
Solo Show, “Equations”
Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin
2014
Solo Show, “Sing Brother Sing”
Catherine Hammond Gallery
2011
Solo Show, “Some Time”
Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin
2010
Two-Person Show
Olcote Gallery/ Kinsale Arts Week
2006
Two-Person Exhibition with Janet Mullarny
Fenton Gallery, Cork
2003
Solo Exhibition
‘Telemachus’
Fenton Gallery, Cork
1999
Solo Exhibition
‘Whose Equation’
West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen
Siamsa tire, Tralee
1994
Solo Exhibition
‘Thought Before Song’
Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork
Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Model Arts Centre, Sligo
1990
Solo Exhibition
Triskel Arts Centre
1989
Solo Exhibition
Boole Library, UCC
1979
Triskel Arts Centre
1973
Lavitt Quay Gallery
Selected Group Shows and Projects
2018
Group Show, “Ipseity”
Westport Art Festival, Co. Sligo
2017
Group Show, “Take Five”
The Mill, Kinsale
2013
The Poetry Project, (www.thepoetryproject.ie)
animation ‘Begin’
2012
RADHARC
Six Contemporary Painters from Ireland
Irish Historical Society, NYC
2012
Oliver Sears Gallery, ‘Hibernation’
Catherine Hammond Gallery , Glengariff
2011
‘The Horse Show’ , RHA, Dublin
RHA annual show (Invited)
‘Field of Vision’, Glucksman Gallery, Cork
2010
Lavitt Gallery
2009
RHA (Invited)
2002
An Leabhar Mor The Great Book Of Gaelic
2001
Art Trail
The Fenton Gallery , ‘Four Series’
1999
New Hampshire Fine Arts, selected Ballinglen fellow
Lavitt Gallery ‘Take Five’
1998
National Gallery of Ireland ‘Art intoArt’
Art Trail Invited Artist
Sciop ‘98 selected by hugh Mullholland
‘Talking about Artist’s Sketchbooks’ Cork County Library Touring Exhibition
‘Iontas’ Sligo Small Art
Triskel Arts Centre Emmerging Artists
Wandsford Quay Print Project
1997
RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin ‘Landscape and Recollection; The Ballinglen Experience’
1994
Poitiers, France ‘Couleurs d’Europe’
1993
Exhibition of Contemporary Irish Art in Poland
Eurothreshold, Millstreet
1992
Cork Airport Exhibition
1991
Triskel Arts Centre ‘Images of Ourselves’
1985
Crawford Municipal Gallery C.A.N. Cork Art Now
Theatre Work and Costume Design
The Granary Theatre
2001
‘Sleepwalking’ (selected works by Franz Kafka) Directed by Regina Crowley
1988
‘The Shoemaker’s Prodigeous Wife’ by F G Lorca Directed by Steven Gale
1987
‘The Bacchae’ by Euripedes
Performance
2001
Performance of the artist’s text, ‘The Gambler’
with Jack Healy
Books
2004
Drawings for Matthew Geden’s
translations of Apollinaire
2000
Cork Harbor Artist’s Book Commision
‘From Scrap’
1994
Thought Before Song
artist book with lithographs and text s by the artist
Residencies
1999
Cill Rialig
1997 and 2010
Ballinglen Arts Foundation
1994
Poitier, France
‘Couleurs D’europe
Cultural Work
2009
Manifest, Kinsale Arts Week
2006
The Raw Not The Cooked, Fenton Gallery
Public Collections
The Arts Council Collection
Bank of Ireland Collection
Allied Irish Bank Collection
Crawford Municipal Gallery
University College Cork
Cork County Council Collection
Artist’s Book Collections
Princeton University Library
NCAD Library, Dublin
Selected Exhibition Catalogues and Reviews
Allen, Jo, ‘Four Series’, CIRCA No. 94, winter 2000
Allen, Jo, ‘Talking about Artist’s Sketchbooks’, CIRCA No. 86, winter 1998
Fenton, Nuala, ‘Whose Equation’ – From a Conversation with the Artist, catalogue for ‘Whose Equation’, West Cork Arts, 5/99
Dunne, Aidan, The Sunday Tribune, 17/7/9
Finlay, Sarah, ‘ One Woman’s Vernacular’, Exhibition Catalogue for ‘Thought Before Song’ touring Exhibition 1994
Finlay, Sarah, Landscape and Recollection, exhibition catalogue, 1997
Hopkin, Allanah,’Motion Between Straight Lines’ ,The Examiner , 8/12/98
Hopkin, Allanah, ‘Whose Equation’, Sunday Times, 6/6/99
O’Kelly. Hillary, ‘Katherine Beug’, Circa, No. , winter 1994
Ryan, Vera, ‘Talking About Artist’s Sketchbooks’, Catalogue, Interview with the artist, 6/98