Eithne Jordan was born in Dublin in 1954. She studied at Dun Laoghaire School of Art from 1972-76 and at Hochschule der Kunste, Berlin, 1984-85. A member of Aosdana, she is one of Ireland’s leading figurative painters. She has exhibited widely in Europe, and her work is in major public and private collections in Ireland, Europe and the U.S. Recent solo exhibitions include Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast (2004), Rubicon Gallery Dublin (2004 & 2007), and Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2007).

Since her emotionally charged expressionistic paintings of the early ’80s, Jordan’s work has turned towards a formal exploration and depiction of the seen world. In recent years she has been using photography as an integral part of the process in generating the imagery. She has investigated the relationship between modern man-made structure – warehouses, motorway bridges and modern suburban dwellings – and the landscape in which they have been placed, calling these paintings 'monumental still-lives'.

The most recent body of work looks at the contemporary urban environment. She is drawn to anonymous urban spaces, the side spaces, factory roofs, subway tunnels, underpasses, and blank walls – those non-places that are forgotten places in cities such as Paris, Rotterdam, Berlin and Vienna. Within the spaces depicted, although evidence of human habitation is everywhere -as in a lit window or a passing car- an explicit human presence is rare, so that there is a melancholy vacancy to most of the scenes. This is accentuated by Jordan’s treatment of the nuances of light and weather: the darkness of a February afternoon, reflected light of a fresh snowfall, or the distictive hue of halogen street lights. There is a suggested possibility of narrative, but the spaces, the light and the objects themselves are the central actors of the drama, so narrative never prevails.

Click on image to view

Artist Homepage | Resume | Bibliography | Past Exhibitions