Imelda Healy

Imelda Healy was born in Dublin and studied at the National College of Art and Design, where she earned a B.A. in Fine Arts (Hons.) in 2000. She also has a degree in Sociology/Anthropology from UCD, and a diploma in History of Art from TCD. She is a founding member of Brunswick Mills Studio, a cooperative space for artists in Smithfield, Dublin.
Imelda was awarded the Symantec Prize in Painting at her degree show in the RHA, 2000. Her first solo show was at Warren’s Boathouse Gallery, Castletownshend in 2001, and she has since exhibited widely, most recently as an emerging artist at the Ashford Gallery, RHA in 2006, and the Book Cube Gallery in Dublin in 2007. She also completed a series of painted banners (oil on canvas, 10’ x 3’) on the theme of Strongbow and Aoife for Powerscourt Townhouse. Her work will appear next in Shaking the Art Tree, the Warren Gallery at the Gresham Hotel in April, and at Riverside Art Centre, Newbridge, Kildare in August.
An accomplished painter of portraits, Imelda has won several commissions and is currently working on a portrait of Gerry Lyne, the Keeper of Manuscripts, for The National Library. Her paintings are in included in many public and private collections, among them the Franciscans at Merchants Quay, Neil and Brenda Jordan, and Paul McGuinness and Kathy Gilfillan.
Imelda has lived in both Eze, France and California, where the intense light of the meridian has influenced the saturated colours of her palette. Her style is contemporary figurative. Her paintings often have a feeling of uncertainty, and her romantic landscapes capture the fragile beauty of a specific moment in time that also reflects a curious timelessness, like a snapshot of eternity. She frequently depicts a single adolescent or child, who is unaware of the paradise he or she is part of.