Exhibition examines a hundred years of women's art
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| Vera McEvoy, centre back row, with some of the of the women comprising the 'Making Marks with Markievicz' group. |
Entitled Glimpses of Escape: your monochrome, my technicolour it comprises works by women artists in the collection, and has been curated by Vera McEvoy and the 'Making Marks with Markievicz' project group. "The collection goes back to the time of Countess Markievicz," Vera says, "a time when women didn't have the vote, and when women as artists were considered a 'lower class' of artist."
The collection was established in the 1970s at the instigation of then County Architect Niall Meagher. The selection for the exhibition includes works by artists Evie Hone (1894-1955), Sandy Kennedy, Bernie Leahy, Norah McGuinness (1901-1980) Ann McKenna, Carly McNulty, Niamh O'Malley, Amelia Peart, Dorothy Smith and Emma Stroude.
Two of the 13 in the Making Marks with Markievicz group are from the Kilcullen area, and the women were generally not artists themselves. "One or two have done some art, a bit of glass making, some painting. But five or six had never engaged with art before, "Vera McEvoy says. "They came from a very wide geographical spread over the county, which was very interesting for me as well."
While studying the collection, the group felt they were looking at a sort of 'monochrome' art of a hundred years ago. "It seemed limited, restricted, with little freedom. And then looking at the newer art, it was, in their terms, technicolour. Hence the title of the exhibition."
The group spent four months exploring the collection, the processes, and the lives of the women artists. "We did print-making, glass fusing, and other things. Making marks, I suppose, is a term for making art, and these women were also making their mark in selecting the works for exhibition."
Vera McEvoy is an artist and a motivational arts facilitator from Celbridge, and some years ago went to college as a mature student, to complete a degree in Fine Art at NCAD. Since then she has worked with a number of groups on a variety of arts projects. In addition to funding from Creative Ireland for this project, Kildare County Council also contributed support.
"I wanted to work on the collection myself, and I wanted to bring a group with me on the journey. I knew we were all going to be changed a little bit by it, when you go on this kind of journey with a group of people, in this case women going through women's art, one of the advantages is that you gain different perspectives. Sometimes ones that you're not expecting — when discussing the artwork, I wouldn't tell them the name of the piece or anything, I just asked them to say what they saw. To hear what they see individually can be quite amazing."
In the Municipal Collection, about a third of the artists are women. Many of the pieces are in the County's libraries, hanging in the Riverbank, or in the Council offices, and sometimes in Naas Hospital. "So people may have seen pieces of the art without realising it is part of the Municipal Collection, part of a much bigger picture."
In the course of the project, the group also made two visits to working artists' studios. They were also told by Arts Officer Lucina Russell that there was funding available to buy a new piece of art for the collection. "She asked would we like to select one, and that was very exciting. We did select a piece that was subsequently purchased."
Over the four months the group engaged in some of the processes of making art, and produced some pieces which will be part of the exhibition. "It was more to engage in what it was like to produce a glass piece, for instance. One of the pieces in the exhibition was a very old glass piece by Evie Hone, so we looked at what it was like to engage with that."
Sue Rainsford, artist in residence at KCC, wrote a commissioned essay for the catalogue, and the exhibition was opened by Niamh O'Malley, one of the artists whose work is being displayed. The event will run until Thursday 5 March, when there will be a closing talk at 1pm by Sue Rainsford as part of International Women's Day 2020.
Vera McEvoy says she is 'delighted' at the way the project has gone, and believes that many in the group now look differently at things. She is hoping to get funding to bring them all back together in the autumn, for a visit to Countess Markievicz's home, and look back on the experience from a longer perspective.
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