Deirdre Keohane: Building an Irish-Canadian Bridge and Reclaiming Spaces for Women in Art

Born in Canada but raised in Ireland, Deirdre Keohane’s journey between two countries—and two artistic worlds—has shaped the deeply personal and culturally rich work she creates today. At age 13, she moved with her family back to Ireland, where she grew up and studied art in the vibrant city of Cork. In 2015, she returned to Canada as an adult, bringing experience, imagination, and a distinctly Irish lens through which she continues to view the world.

Deirdre works primarily with oil on canvas, a medium she studied at MTU Crawford College of Art and Design. She also earned an arts teaching degree in Clonakilty, Ireland. Her life and career have taken her back and forth across the Atlantic around six times, working as an artist both in the Old World and Canada.

While in Ireland, Deirdre’s work mostly consisted of outdoor sketches that she transformed into trippy landscapes and funky, wobbly townscapes with cartoonish, warped buildings that burst with energy. “I’m a fan of cartoons and comics,” she says. However, that playful, almost surreal style didn’t quite translate to Vancouver’s more structured cityscape.

Adjusting to life as an artist in Vancouver came with new challenges. “It’s much more challenging to be an artist here than in Ireland,” Deirdre explains. She balanced her art practice with full-time work, including many years in Montreal’s animation industry at Pascal Blais Animation and the National Film Board, and also worked as an illustrator for The Celtic Connection newspaper in BC. There, her editor and the Irish diaspora community encouraged her to delve deeper into her cultural roots through her art.

Although she couldn’t find work as an art teacher in Canada, she became an Educator Assistant (EA) and now works at an elementary school in Vancouver’s Chinatown, supporting special-needs children. This role, she says, leaves her with enough time and energy to pursue her art—a balance she’s grateful for.

Living in Vancouver led Deirdre back to the artistic heritage of her Irish upbringing. One of her biggest influences is Harry Clarke, a stained glass artist from the 1920s who was part of the Celtic Revival, a movement aiming to revive Irish identity through art. Clarke’s intricate, colourful works are visible throughout Cork, especially in the chapel windows. “You’re practically tripping over ancient artifacts in my hometown in Ireland; it’s so rich in culture,” Deirdre says.

Her fascination with stained glass is apparent in her paintings: bold colours, thick black lines, and vivid contrast. “I’m a colour junkie,” she admits. Her dominant use of blue began with a happy accident: a botched photocopy. Pixelation and distortion from enlarging small-format photographs became another visual cue she embraced.

Although she tried out working in stained glass, Deirdre’s chosen method is oil painting. What inspires her isn’t just the aesthetics of stained glass, but its function: storytelling. “I’m into stories and characters,” she says. Her portraits are steeped in Irish mythology, folklore, and history, particularly stories of women. “It’s unusual to find female figures in Irish art,” she explains, “because the illustrations were created by monks in isolation, who rarely saw women and mostly depicted Mary.” Through her work, she revives ancestral goddesses and heroines, such as Brighid, reclaiming space for women in the visual language of Irish history.

In the past, Deirdre painted a series of 24 works capturing the sweep of Irish history, from pagan traditions to modern times. One of her city and landscape pieces was even gifted to Irish President Michael D. Higgins, a known supporter of the arts and cultural heritage.

While her roots in Irish storytelling run deep, Deirdre is hesitant to claim space in Canadian narratives. “I don’t feel like I can tell Canadian stories,” she says. “I don’t feel connected enough to do so. I don’t feel ownership.” Still, she sees intriguing parallels between Irish and Indigenous mythology. One of her upcoming projects will involve illustrating a story by her friend Stephen, a Nlaka’pamux writer—an exciting collaboration that builds bridges between cultures through art.

Deirdre also brings a strong community focus to her practice. In Ireland, she founded two community art centres that still thrive today. In Vancouver, her passion for accessible art led her to create public art spaces. With a grant from the Carnegie Community Centre and later the City of Vancouver, she launched Inclusive En Plain Air in 2024, a project that transformed an empty lot in Gastown into a casual, inclusive outdoor art hub. Every Sunday, she set up a table and a tent, offered canvas sketches of local landmarks like the Europe Hotel and the Steam Clock, and invited people of all backgrounds—tourists, residents, the unhoused—to sit and colour them in. “It was lovely, very relaxed. Maybe I’ll continue it next year,” she says.

For the first time, Deirdre now has her own studio space, nestled in Chinatown since October 2024. With room to spread out, she’s been preparing her work for Art Vancouver, where she’ll exhibit a vibrant mix of small, medium, and large-scale oil paintings. Many of the pieces were created during the pandemic, a time of isolation and reflection. Themes of space, vulnerability, and celestial symbols run through the work. “It felt therapeutic,” she says of painting them, especially as she adjusted to life in a new country.

Will her vivid Irish imagery connect with Canadian audiences? “I hope they like it,” she says with a laugh. Whether it’s a sacred heart, a mythological goddess, or a glowing stained-glass-inspired portrait, Deirdre’s work offers a window into a world where culture, memory, and imagination converge in luminous colour.

Deirdre has exhibited her works at this year’s Art Vancouver for the first time, and if you missed her in person at the event, have a look at her website or Instagram account to experience her vibrant Irish-Canadian colours through the screen.

Follow Deirdre Keohane online:

Website - www.deirdrekeohane.com

Instagram - @deirdre_keohane_artist

by Melanie Kage