Oonagh Latchford

The greater part of my work is figurative and I have a particular interest in portraiture. I paint from life however in the last few years have become increasingly more interested in finding subject matter within the relatively new phenomenon of online social environments. I journey through virtual space observing snippets of constructed and sometimes adopted personas. I observe what I see, just as I would if out for a walk - and am curious to study vignettes of lives, be they fictional or not, and of our era. I am interested in how – more so than in the non-virtual world, people have the freedom and opportunity to recreate themselves, to only show themselves in a particular light – to abstract themselves.  A lot of my paintings in the last year or so have been made from online images. I often experiment with them until I am happy with the composition, often choosing to crop at awkward angles or playing with the light so that they look over exposed. 

I work in both oil and acrylic paint and whilst I have been painting on board and in reverse on Perspex, I am currently working solely on canvas. I am influenced by artists such as Jenny Saville, Gerhard Richter, Luc Tuymans and Lucian Freud, the latter’s influence being more apparent when painting from life. 

I am a graduate of IT Carlow where I received a BA (hons) in Art. My work is in the collections of IT Carlow and Wexford VEC along with many private collections.


www.oonaghlatchford.com