Born in Strabane in 1952, Felim Egan studied in Belfast and Portsmouth before attending the Slade School of Art in London. He spent a year at the British School in Rome in 1980 before returning to Dublin where he has since lived and worked.

He has exhibited regularly in Ireland and Europe and has had important solo exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 1996 and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1999.

In 1981 he represented Ireland at the XIE Biennale de Paris and in 1985 at the São Paulo Biennial. In 1993 he was awarded the Premier UNESCO Prize for the Arts in Paris and received the Premiere Prize at Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1995. He has collaborated with A.R. Penck and the poet Seamus Heaney. Large scale commissions include works for Dublin Castle, National Gallery of Ireland and Cork Street, Dublin. He is represented in numerous collections both public and private, including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Irish Museum of Modern Art; Ulster Museum, Belfast; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the collection of the European Parliament. Felim Egan is a member of Aosdána.