Press Articles

Galway Now magazine Feature, September 2006

Excerpts from article written by Sinead Ni Neachtain

These eight Familiar famous faces, along with nine other Galway ladies will adorn the walls of the Kenny Gallery this month as part of an innovative collaboration between the Galway rape Crisis Centre and an Athenry Based portrait artist Jenny O’Brien. The 12 women will also feature in a Galway Rape Crisis Centre 2007 Calendar. Tah artist was inspired by a piece in a Newspaper about the work of the centre.She approached the management team with her idea for her fund reaising project, the result of which is this unique portrait exhibition entitled Inspirational Women of Galway…

The artist herself view the undertaking as one of her biggest challenges to date. Portraiture is her first love and she works primarily with the traditional medium of oil on canvas which gives her freedom and flexibility when painting. “For the portraits, I worked mostly from photographs and met as many of the women as I could. It has taken about 14 months to complete and my aim was to capture the personality behind the image.

I wanted to do each of the individual characters justice” says O’Brien. “As well as being artistically rewarding, it makes it all the more special because the proceeds will be going to a well deserved charity” … Says Centre co-ordinator Tanja Alanko-O’Malley “Just over a year ago, we had begun brainstorming ideas when Jenny approached us with her concept and it was exactly the type of project we had envisioned. We loved the idea of having portraits of women from all walks of life.. Jenny’s timing was perfect and we were delighted to work with an artist of her calibre and experience”.

Website design © hotgingermedia 2011