Portrait & Equine

Anthony O'Keefe is a self-taught artist who specialises in portraiture in oils on canvas, skills which he has recently transferred to the equine world. He has been undertaking commissions for thirty years. More recently he has begun to promote his work through exhibitions in the south west.

The majority of Anthony’s work has been portraiture of either single sitters or family groups. Anthony works from a combination of life sittings and photographic references, with the life sittings at the beginning and end of the process.

Anthony aims to portray the character of a sitter through detail and realism in a carefully composed painting. The techniques Anthony uses hark back to the renaissance period of under-painting and glazes, applied to a contemporary composition.

Until an injury prevented Anthony from riding he was a keen dressage rider, and it is this passion that he brings to his equine paintings, aiming to capture the power and beauty of the horse and the subtle communication between horse and rider.

After leaving school Anthony joined the Army, serving mainly in Europe before leaving for Aberdeen and working in the North Sea. His technical career has taken him to a number of cities in the UK, and he now works in the Falkland Islands. Anthony returns to the UK four times a year to promote his artistic work, to meet his sitters and to carry out his commissioned paintings.

For more information visit http://www.harbourhouse.org.uk/gallery-anthonyokeefe14.html