Agriculture
Meets the diverse group of artists who have drawn on their farming experiences as the inspiration for a ground-breaking exhibition
‘WOMEN have always been working hard in the background of the farming world and the art world but in recent times they have more of a voice.”
That’s the verdict of Kerry artist Laura Fitzgerald, a farmer’s daughter who is one of a number of female artists currently displaying their work in the Encountering the Land exhibition in VISUAL Carlow, which runs until September 2.
The connection between art and farming has always been strong for Laura.
In 2013 while completing a masters at the Royal College of Art in London she would travel home to attend the Green Cert course in Pallaskenry Agricultural College in Co Limerick.
While her father has now retired from suckler farming, the impact of growing up on a farm has had on Laura’s work is evident in her paintings on display in Carlow.
“It’s a symbol for how there have been so many changes in farming and how these hay sheds are now seen as dinosaurs from the past, but for me as a child the hay barn was always a place to escape and dream,” she says.
“I’d be sad if that space was lost; I think we are losing something if we start building super-farms and if spaces like the hay shed become eradicated from the landscape.”
A second painting Laura has in the exhibition is of stones, which she jokes that “Kerry is great at growing”.
“The stones for me are a metaphor for loneliness and the isolation of farming. My father farmed most of his life but it’s such an isolating occupation and a lot of things aren’t talked about,” she explains.
While gelatine, beef fat and milk are materials usually associated with a farm yard, emerging artist Katie Watchorn, who comes from a dairy farm in Bilboa, Co Kilkenny, tries to incorporate farm objects in to her work as much as possible.
Katie’s piece ‘Long Live the Cow, The Cow is Dead’ is part of a larger project called ‘BalehomeBalehome’.
The piece features a milking platform made of beef fat and wax, and she says the project was inspired by the 1980s milking parlour at home.
“I wanted to look at the milking parlour as a room and examine small farming practice and where it’s going at the moment. It seems to be on the way out in a way,” she says.
“These milking parlours that were built in the 1980s out of what you would think is permanent material of con- crete are now being ripped out and replaced by your rotary or mechanical parlours.”
Another interesting element to Katie’s piece is notes from her grandmother’s log book of the names of cows they kept on the farm, and other invoices and dockets that were stored down through the years.
“My grandmother married my grandfather in the 1950s and kept a record of all the cows on the farm and it’s really personal and sensitive. She had really specific names. Every farm has something similar I suppose,” says Katie.
“The current herd is descending from a lot of those — we haven’t bought in a lot of cows, there’s daughters upon daughters upon daughters.”
Katie also chose ‘Balehome Balehome’ for the title of her project as it is the specific cattle call her family uses.
Katie studied at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and has always had a focus on the rural.
While she is the only member of her family to go on and study art she feels that her family, including her father Cecil and mother Sandra, have a creative side.
“My older brother is a woodwork and tech graphics teacher. My mother would’ve loved to have done art but it wouldn’t have been feasible so she’s a nurse,” she says.
“My father is someone I’d be fascinated with. He’s excellent with his hands, like a lot of farmers are. He’s ingenious at coming up with ideas for things without spending money.
“So I guess there is a lot of creativity there.”
THESE SHEDS ARE SEEN AS DINOSAURS FROM THE PAST BUT FOR ME AS A CHILD THE HAY BARN WAS ALWAYS A PLACE TO ESCAPE AND DREAM