2021
Lorna Donlon
Lorna Donlon’s idiosyncratic practice combines tapestry, collage, science and storytelling.
Laura Fitzgerald is a visual artist from a small mountain farm in Kerry. She completed a BA in Fine Art (Painting) at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin in 2007 and an MFA at the Royal College of Art, London in 2013. Her work encompasses drawing, painting, text and video, focusing on the rapid changes she and others are experiencing in the modern world.
She says that she is unhappy with all her previous artist statements. She’s said things in the past that she didn’t mean (and they were not as satisfactory as she had originally hoped them to be). They were vague, complicated. It was all absurd. It made no sense at all. She is an artist who is practising (getting better at getting worse slowly but surely). She makes drawings, videos, installations and paintings. Her work is personal and political. She is interested in the rural but also in internationalism – she wants to be David Shrigley, the kind of artist that can have a show in the Hayward Gallery and a greeting card range. She is considering cards. Her work is essentially a stick; a gnarly knobbly piece of hawthorn. A pointer. She hopes there might be something cathartic in it for you.
Laura Fitzgerald applied for a Golden Fleece Award to help finance the conversion of a disused cow shed on her family’s farm in Inch, Co. Kerry into a new studio. Having recently relocated from Dublin, she wishes to sustain her practice in a rural context while continuing to experiment with process and materials. Creating a home studio will allow her to make ambitious large-scale paintings, drawings and sculptures for upcoming exhibitions.
