MARGARET FITZGIBBON OUTLINES THE EVOLUTION OF HER PRACTICE.
I completed a BA in Sculpture at Crawford College of Art and Design in the 1980s. Soon afterwards, I joined the recently formed Cork Artist Collective (est. 1985) and became a director, serving until 2006. Not only did CAC provide me with a studio, but also the fellowship of other emerging artists.
During the 90s, I completed a range of public art works. For example, in 1997, I was commissioned to create a site-specific commission for University College Cork, Ten Foolish and Wise Virgins, comprising ten bronze and stone sculptures, sited in the foyer of the O’Rahilly Building. In 2008, I completed an MFA in Sculpture at NCAD, followed by a practice-based PhD in 2013. My doctoral thesis was titled ‘Loss and Return: Exploring collective memory in an Irish family archive 1950-1966 through installation art practice’.
I work across a wide range of media, including sculpture, textiles, sound, drawing, moving image, and collage, and my choice of materials is often intuitively led. I like my processes to be technically exact, however the final results often look spontaneous, even awkward, suggesting a sense of fragility. In the last few years, I’ve turned to early Surrealism, drawn to its recurring principle of ‘the strange beauty in the unexpected’. Different media have their own cultural and historical charge, which informs and resonates with me and, in turn, the viewer.
Art-making is how I process memories, experiences and observations. By fusing narrative modes, including poetry, text, image, and collage, I recalibrate the tensions between reality and fantasy. I often work in series and return to the same themes, which includes the natural world, the boundaries of the body, autobiography, memory, hidden histories, and feminism.
This summer I had two concurrent solo exhibitions. ‘You Begin’, at Mermaid Arts Centre (20 May – 1 July) presented new artworks employing a broad range of materials, such as ceramics, collage, and textiles. Making art through the global pandemic and affected by isolation, fear, and a new connectedness, I drew on the sensuality of plants and research on early female Surrealist artists. This exhibition was accompanied by a publication with an essay by Ingrid Lyons. For ‘Do you see us – Do you hear us?’ at Godsbanen Cultural Centre in Aarhus, Denmark (26 June – 21 August) I exhibited a series of large-scale collage works. These figurative works explore ancient mythologies and holistic forms of crafting, belonging and surviving in harmony with nature, conveyed through the repeated motif of female hands as symbols of both oppression and comfort that yearn to connect.
My plan for the next couple of years is simple enough – to continue making art. I’m currently in discussions with Godsbanen and Pamela Gomberbach (Project Manager, AaBKC International) to develop an artist residency in Aarhus next year; researching at HEX! Museum of Witch Hunt, located in Riba, the oldest town in Denmark. I would like to find an Irish venue to exhibit the Aarhus collages. I’m also at the early stages of a short, experimental animation, for which I received an Arts Council of Ireland award.
Margaret Fitzgibbon lives in Dublin and has a studio in Glencree, County Wicklow.
margaretfitzgibbon.net
