Eileen Hogan - Personal Geographies

Self-Portrait through Wardrobe 2 
2015, Oil and wax on paper, 61 × 55 cm
© Eileen Hogan

During discussions Eileen had while planning her retrospective exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art in 2019, She made connections about her work and saw herself in a context which she hadn’t entirely recognised (or celebrated) before. A number of questions emerged from the conversations – 'Why figurative? Why painting? Why do I paint what I paint? Why is drawing in sketchbooks essential to my practice? Why do some artists matter so much to me?  Why do I paint the same thing over and over again? Why are words and lettering important to me and yet do not figure prominently in my paintings?' These questions raise other questions more than suggest answers, but the lecture attempts to provide some cross references and to plot some influences.

Eileen Hogan is a practicing artist who has exhibited widely in Europe and America. In 2019 a retrospective of her work called Eileen Hogan: Personal Geographies will be held at the Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA and will be accompanied by a book with the same title, published by Yale University Press. She is Professor across Fine Art and Theatre at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges, University of the Arts London, a member of the Academic Board and a Trustee of the Royal Drawing School.