Anna McKeever - Children of Lir: Gormleys Dublin
“For me, The Children of Lir isn’t simply a story of tragedy. It’s a story of endurance, identity and hope.” - Anna McKeever
Irish painter Anna McKeever presents The Children of Lir, a powerful new body of work inspired by one of Ireland’s most enduring mythological tales. Comprising eight large-scale paintings, the collection will be shown at Gormleys Dublin from 8– 27 July.
‘The Children of Lir’ continues McKeever’s ongoing engagement with Irish mythology. Across this series, she has reimagined ancient stories through a contemporary visual language. McKeever uses myth as a lens through which to explore universal themes of love, loss, belonging, resilience and identity. Rather than treating these stories as folklore or history, she approaches them as living emotional landscapes that continue to speak to the human condition.
A former psychiatrist, McKeever’s practice has always been rooted in a fascination with the human condition and our inner emotional landscape. While psychiatry explored that invisible terrain through language, painting has given her the freedom to embrace ambiguity. Through colour, gesture and atmosphere, she creates spaces where emotion can be experienced rather than explained - inviting viewers to sit with feeling rather than resolve it.
The legend of The Children of Lir tells the story of four siblings transformed into swans and condemned to wander Ireland’s waters for centuries. For McKeever, the myth is ultimately one of identity, belonging and loss. The children are transformed, displaced and continually moving, yet they never lose the essence of who they are.
In a time when questions of identity, migration and belonging continue to shape contemporary Ireland, the story takes on a renewed relevance. The swans become symbols of a timeless human experience: even as we cross borders, endure change and inhabit unfamiliar landscapes, we continue to search for belonging without losing our sense of self.
Across the collection, luminous swans emerge from expansive fields of ultramarine, indigo and midnight blue. Their forms hover between abstraction and representation as layers of paint bleed, merge and fracture into luminous veils of colour and light. Expansive passages of colour and space are an intentional part of McKeever’s painterly language, creating moments of stillness and emotional openness.
Her paintings do not seek to depict emotion; they create the conditions in which emotion can emerge. Rather than illustrating the myth directly, they invite viewers to bring their own memories, interpretations and lived experience into the work - allowing the ancient story to become a shared emotional landscape.
