Painter and printmaker Irene Scheinmann was born into a Jewish family in Baghdad, Iraq in 1933
After coming to England for her education, Scheinmann went on to have an early career in the Fashion industry in both London and Paris.
Her love of art led to a shift in focus and she studied painting and printmaking in England and France, working at Atelier 63 in Paris, and with Julian Trevelyan at his Hammersmith studio in London.
She was an elected member of Trace, the French printmaking association, and of the California Society of Printmakers, and founded the European artist’s association, Print Europe, in 1991.
Scheinmann’s work is an amalgam of the seen with the imagined. Landscape and the human figure are a vital source of inspiration; especially the rock formations on the island of Hvasser in southern Norway. The indentations and fractures in the rocks suggest new visions which are then translated into paintings, original prints and mixed Media works.
In the 1980s, the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine led to the series of etchings ‘A New Wilderness’, which were showcased in 1995 in an Exhibition at Ben Uri Gallery in London, and also previously exhibited at the Karelian State Museum, Russia.
With the start of the new millennium, Scheinmann started to work in Photography and Digital Collage .
‘The mouse has replaced the etching tools and has taken me somewhere else in my work. When I ventured into the Digital World the flexibility of the computer and Photoshop software allowed me to explore the internal space in my mind as well as the infinite space of the universe.’
Scheinmann continued to work from her studio in Richmond, London, exhibiting frequently as well as working with young artists.