Photograph of John Beattie on-set directing ‘Showing the Archives’ at The National Archives of Ireland, 2023. Photograph taken by the Cinematographer and Steadicam Operator Tim Hood.
John Beattie is a visual artist whose practice critically engages with historical and cultural narratives. Working across a range of media - including drawing, still image, and moving image - his work is marked by a distinctive sense of staging and choreography.
Beattie often constructs meticulously orchestrated scenes that interrogate how narratives are represented, re-staged, and re-interpreted. A recurring theme in his practice is temporality - both as a conceptual framework and as a process integral to the making of the work itself. Through exhibition, he invites viewers to reflect on questions of time, history, and representation.
Examples of his most recent work are: Shadowing the Archives, in collaboration with the National Archives of Ireland, funded by the Department of the Arts, Dublin Castle, 2023; Reconstructing Mondrian, his solo museum exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, 2023; and An Artist, The Studio, and all the rest… Part 1 and Part 2, exhibited as a solo exhibition at the RHA, Dublin, funded by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Beattie has been awarded a number of residencies to date, including: The National Archives of Ireland for the State Decade of Centenaries Programme 2021-2023; the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, 2020; the apexart Fellowship, New York, 2015; IMMA, Dublin, 2011; Temple Bar Gallery & Studio, Dublin, 2010; the RHA, Dublin, 2010; and Fire Station Artists’ Studios, Dublin, 2006- 2009. His practice has been supported and acknowledged through awards and bursaries such as The Arts Council Travel & Training Bursary, The Arts Council Projects Awards, The Arts Council Visual Artist Bursary’s, The Donegal County Council Artist Bursary’s, an Open EV+A Award, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Hennessy Portrait Prize finalist at the National Gallery of Ireland, and received the Arts Humanities Research Board grant in 2003-2005.
Beattie’s work is in public and private collections, including: The Hugh Lane Gallery Collection, The Office of Public Works, and The Arts Council of Ireland Collection.