Gwen O’Dowd began exhibiting in the mid 1980’s.Her formal concerns have always been rooted deeply in the tradition of landscape painting.Yet the specific locales from which she has drawn inspiration,the modes of addressing them and the metaphoric import of the resulting series of paintings have varied considerably over the years.
Among the aspects of the landscape O’Dowd has registered over the past decades were the ecological devastation of the Gulf War,the epic Grandeur of the Grand Canyon,,the mythically sexualised landscape of coastal Ireland,the elemental force of the Waves and most recently the ‘Humanising’ of the bird life that surrounds her.
Some important group exhibitions in which she participated in recent years were ‘Poetic Land – Political Landscape’ which toured Britain.’Re;Dressing Caitlin’contemporary works from Irish Women artists and ‘Eire – Land’ both at the Mc Mullen Museum of Art,Boston College.
O’Dowd is represented in the collections of the Arts Council of Ireland and Northern Ireland,the Irish Museum of Modern art,and in many corporate and private collections in Ireland,USA,Europe and Japan.
She presently lives and works in Dublin and in Wexford which is providing new inspiration for her work.