Deirdre Sullivan Beeman

Deirdre Sullivan Beeman (née Deirdre Sullivan, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, California and Vancouver, Canada. She is a contemporary surrealist and magical realist painter whose work is born out of third wave feminism. She is best known for her use of the mische technique; combining egg tempera and oil paint.

Paintings Sullivan-Beeman’s work focuses on a central female figure which she denotes as a “heroine”, who is often accompanied by a force she calls a “daemon”, typified most frequently by an animal, or some other symbol of the natural world. The current environmental state of disarray informs her work; her view that “animals don’t often exist as equal partners in this big world” influences the nuance with which she includes animals as “sidekicks” to her heroine subjects. Here, Sullivan-Beeman’s heroine is presented traditionally in terms of style and culture; she also draws on feminist ideals in that she posits the heroine as a protector figure of nature.