Artist of the Month, March 2024 - Eimhéar Atkinson

Eimhéar Atkinson is young female artist living and working in Belfast. She graduated from the BA (Hons) Fine Art Course at Ulster University in 2023. Her work explores the perspective of the male gaze throughout art history, which lead to her own pursuit to challenge and reinterpret it. She aims to redepict historical male artists work through the eyes of a female artist, creating a dissolution between these traditional pieces of art and the artist, with particular focus of artworks in which women fell subject to the male gaze.

“Diana after the bath, after Boucher” is part of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Collection. It was exhibited in Eimhéar’s final degree show in Ulster University 2023. The painting is a reimagining of Boucher’s famous painting, through the eyes of a female artist, and using expressionistic brush strokes that restrict the interpretation of the original artwork and questions the need for nudity within it.