Ursula Klinger was born in Germany, where she graduated in Fine Art and History. While travelling through Ireland she chose Connemara as her second home for ten years before moving her Irish base to Dublin in the late nineties.
She works mainly in oils and watercolours. Her realistic figurative style was influenced by the surrealists and based on the traditional technique of oil painting, where under-painting and numerous thin layers of glazes create depth of colour and light. Several commissions for churches in the West of Ireland involved the use of woodcarving, enamels and egg tempera. Those commissions include the complete refurbishment of the church in Lettermullen, Co. Galway) and a Last Supper for Kilconly, Co. Galway.
Her work centres around the human condition in both its fragility and its potential. This ambiguity is reflected in the traces which the mostly absent humans have left in many of the paintings – an unmade bed, an abandoned shoe on a beach– telling a multitude of possible stories. Through time the series evolves, as themes are revisited to explore new facets and aspects.
Her work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions and can be found in collections, both in Ireland and abroad. Her paintings are represented in several galleries around Ireland.