Michael Beirne lives and works in Ireland. His work is included in the collections of Butler Gallery Kilkenny and Crawford Municipal Art gallery in Cork as well as several significant private collections in Ireland. Although recognized primarily as a painter he works in a broad range of media including painting, sculpture and performance. His work often incorporates traditional materials and craft skills (esoteric millinery techniques for example) which he re-purposes to subversive ends questioning conventional notions of gender, religious iconography etc. Mundane domestic objects, mementos and religious relics take on new meaning and an unsettling power in exquisitely detailed miniature portraits of beloved animal companions in his latest body of work. Love tokens with a dark side these mementos are complex objects, reservoirs of conflicting emotions.