Big Shot Painting

Aileen McEwen (b.Belfast 1989) is an artist based in Northern Ireland. Her works take the form of large scale figurative oil paintings. Her work is an exploration of illusion, desire and memory. She layers together in equal measure imagery taken from art history, myth, and contemporary culture such as interior design, food and consumerism. McEwen constructs narratives that confront the anxiety surrounding the value of painting when reproduction is easy and the internet oversaturates us with imagery. Colour and light, and brushstrokes, inform the psychological space of the painting. Recent works have begun to engage with the tension between figuration and abstraction. Her palette and composition is influenced, in particular, by Rococo art and Impressionism. Aileen McEwen graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2012 with a B. A. (Hons) in Painting and Printmaking and was shortlisted for the Saatchi New Sensations Prize. She works in cultural heritage, and her paintings are full of the historic spaces and objects in which and with which she works.