Genieve Figgis (born 1972, Dublin) is an acclaimed contemporary painter known for her distinctive reimagining of Rococo and Baroque imagery through a darkly humorous, subversive lens. Her paintings transform scenes of aristocratic leisure, romance, and excess into unsettling, fluid compositions that critique historical power structures, class, and idealized beauty.
Working primarily with acrylic paint, Figgis employs a loose, fast, and highly gestural technique that allows colors to bleed and figures to dissolve. Faces melt, bodies blur, and compositions appear caught in states of instability, giving her artworks a ghostly, dreamlike quality. This painterly distortion is central to her practice, disrupting the formal polish of historical painting and exposing its underlying tensions and absurdities.
Educated at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Figgis has developed a visual language that merges art-historical reference with contemporary psychological intensity. Her works balance humor and unease, seduction and decay, positioning her as a leading voice in contemporary figurative painting.
Alongside her paintings, Genieve Figgis produces signed limited edition prints that translate her expressive style into collectible formats. These fine art prints retain the spontaneity, saturated color, and grotesque elegance of her original works, making them highly sought after by collectors of contemporary art editions.
