Izzie Beirne – By The Ruins Often I Pass

Izzie Beirne
By The Ruins Often I Pass

This new body of work sees Beirne working across a range of scales for her oil paintings, incorporating sections of quiet alongside the visually clamorous. Within the paintings are moments of everyday softness – a painted sunset through a fogged window in Out of the Window She Popped Her Head or a hazy bathroom sink.

These moments are captured with care and a naive adoration. Contrasting are pieces permeated with a sense of entrapment and voyeurism – a butterfly trapped in a mouldy window in Fly Away Home or the silhouette of a girl walking away from the viewer in Leave Them Alone and They’ll Come Home.

The most overtly menacing work made by Beirne is the hero image The House No Longer Represented Anything Good – pictured is a house on fire encased by night, bringing into question the home as a place of safety, sanctity and sacrilege. The symbolic is ever present in Beirne’s works, conjuring a unique blend of myth, universality of feeling and the everyday.

The title of the exhibition is a line taken from the poem Upon The Burning of Our House (1666) by Anne Bradstreet which the poet wrote describing the loss and grief of Bradshaw’s house burning down. Beirne pulls references from historical and contemporary sources for her titling, paying homage to folk tales, nursery rhymes and fiction whilst imbuing the works with a narrative which, by design, never feels fully finished.

Late Opening Event: Thursday 5th June, 5.30 – 7.30pm. Join us at the midpoint of the exhibition for drinks and an extended evening viewing. Free to attend.

Exhibition Dates: 30th May — 16th June 2026 Tuesday to Saturday, 11am – 4.45pm

Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, Museum Street, Blackburn, BB1 7AJ

Izzie Beirne (b.1996) is a London-based artist from Newcastle Upon Tyne. Beirne completed her BA (Hons) Fine Art at Leeds Arts University (2019) and her MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University in London (2023). Beirne was recipient of The Almacantar Award and studio residency (2023) and has been shortlisted for several awards. Recent exhibitions include The Second Act, London, Guts Gallery, London, Moosey, Norwich, Plan X, Milan, Twilight Contemporary, London and Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Blackburn.