ABOUT Éamon McGivern - A/HISTORY
Éamon McGivern: A/History explores the multifaceted nature of identity, memory, and representation, examining how artists portray individuals and the stories they tell about themselves or their lives through their likeness. The exhibition invites viewers to engage with the emotional presence and unique perspectives of each subject, including the artist himself.
A/History underscores the elasticity of past and present, the singular and the multiple, and history and fiction. Presented alongside photographs and ephemera from the GLBT Historical Society archive, McGivern’s paintings seek to build an intergenerational connection with LGBTQ+ people of earlier generations, many of whom were lost to intersecting violences of governmental neglect (especially that of the HIV/AIDS crisis), transphobia, poverty, and the prison industrial complex.
McGivern has a well-articulated ethical philosophy of painting a portrait; there is something “powerful and compelling” about intentionally entering an empathetic space with another person, with another person’s story. For McGivern, the stories of these subjects are “living memory, not archives.” They are guide posts for the future in which all queer and trans people deserve to live.
“I’ve been learning about how important intergeneration queer community is, the importance of building relationships with our queer elders who have survived against all odds, and protecting the legacy of the ones we have lost too soon.
Trans people deserve to live. We deserve healthcare, housing, and dignity. I want all of us to live so that the next generation of queer people will know what they might look like when they grow up. ”
Self Portrait at Ocean Beach, Oil on Canvas, 26”x20”, 2022.
About the ARTIST
Éamon McGivern is an artist from San Francisco who has spent the past seven years in the Bay Area painting portraits of queers, punks and poets. More recently, he has been delving into the archives of 20th century LGBTQ history, picking up strands from holes in the historical narratives in attempts to darn the tears between the past and present wrought by political oppression, transphobia and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. His work feels into the sorrow born from the absence of the queer and trans people who would have been the teachers, mentors, parents and grandparents of his generation and the effect their deaths have on contemporary life.
Éamon holds a BFA with honors in Painting from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY and an MA in Fine Arts from the Chelsea College, London, U.K. He are a two time recipient of the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Individual Artists Grant, a former artist in residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Residency 11:11 in London, U.K.
About the GLBT Historical Society
Founded in 1985, the GLBT Historical Society is a global leader in LGBTQ+ public history. The Society collects, preserves, exhibits, and makes accessible to the public materials and knowledge to support and promote understanding of LGBTQ+ history, culture, and arts in all their diversity. In 2011, the Society established and continues operating the first museum of LGBTQ+ history and culture in the United States. Through the Dr. John P. DeCecco Archives, the organization maintains one of the world’s largest archival collections of LGBTQ+ historical materials.
EXHIBITION SPONSORS
This exhibition is made possible with generous support from the following individuals and institutions:
Larry Brenner & Angelo Figone
Header Credit: Playwright Anthony Bruno at a Mapplethorpe exhibition, San Francisco 1990. 38”x50” inches, 2024. By Éamon McGivern.