About me

Eileen Stapleton McCarthy is an abstract, environmental, contemporary Irish visual artist from Co. Tipperary with a keen interest in the Irish landscape. She has studied Fine Art Painting at St. John’s College Cork and received a first class honours degree in Fine Art Painting from Limerick School of Art and Design.

Eileen holds a Postgraduate Dip (Hons) in counselling from UCC and has decades of experience of working in this field which she brings to bear in her artwork. Her breath and knowledge in this field travels the whole human life span from early childhood to the third age which includes couples, groups and professional training programmes. Eileen is also a professional therapist and supervisory with I.A.C.P wherein she supervises students, therapists, supervisors and training. She has written many articles and training programmes while close to her heart lies the language of poetry. She is currently pursuing a Practice Based MA/PhD at TUS Shannon.

Eileen is an eclectic artist engaging with many mediums such as painting, installations, photography and combined media, land art and Social Engagement. She is well known as an evocative and creative writer. Her engagement with the community, landscape, heritage, and a love for nature is evident throughout her practice. Her artwork is a relational exploration of humankind, the landscape environment, and our potential to change.

In these artworks Eileen focuses on the Irish Landscape and its context in contemporary society. The representational aspect of her paintings, installations and of her photography, audio-visual media are replaced by abstract dichotomies with abstract and realist imagery.

The paintings focus on our relational position and shifts through the permeance of embodied memory in the landscape. She uses simple natural materials to communicate an authentic aesthetic language. This creates a space which connects the viewer to the Irish Landscape Environment. The viewer is prompted to relinquish any attachment to industrialised materials and instead focuses on pure aesthetics and nuances of memory on a surface of raw linen or water color paper.  The result is freedom of artistic expression while the viewer is provided with a connective space in which to mindfully reflect.