Inspired by travelling to Spain, Egan’s latest body of work, “Friends, Foes and Other Animals”, features an array of characters and scenes drawn from her recent experiences. Set against backgrounds of the Gardens of Montjuic, the Majorcan coastline, Valencia and Toledo her muses are clad in sumptuous costumes acting out roles of both the bizarre and fantastic.

Egan’s protagonists for this series are Pepa and Christabel Blackman, plus an array of other friends and animals encountered on her journeys. Christabel’s penchant for exotic culinary delights renders her “The Mean Paella Queen”, while Pepa, depicted as a “Lolita”, encompasses all that is beautiful and innocent. Within these parameters, Egan explores themes of friendship, loss and our relationship with nature, resulting in paintings that are both humorous and at times sad. In the painting “Harvest”, Pepa is shown wearing a cornucopia gown of fruit and vegetables encircled by her guardian animals. In other works, Goya and Velaquez inspired muses, wear hats of trees or dresses of fish tied up in strings of pearls.

Egan presents the possibility of a more gentle relationship with nature, evoking reverence and wonder rather than aggression or confrontation. The paintings reflect a peace that requires no thought, simply the experience with colour merging with something other than self. They address our collective need for freedom and relief from the circumstances of day to day routine and the pressures of an increasingly urban existence.