KATE’S LANDSCAPE BRIGHTENS BLOOM
GOREY-BASED ARTIST Kate Kos received a blooming great boost to her career with a commission to paint a massive mural which formed part of a Bronze Medal winning show garden at Bloom festival in the Phoenix Park last weekend.
Kate, who recently painted a 2x3m mural of her signature Cosmic Flowers on a section of wall beside the outdoor gym at Gorey Civic Square, was asked to execute an 18x2.2m backdrop painting as part of a garden called ‘Flúirse Fingal’ created by the leading Irish garden architect Jane McCorkell, featuring landscape and landmark scenes from the Fingal area.
The overall garden project by seven times Gold Medal winner McCorkell was sponsored and supported by Fingal County Council, the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown’s horticulture department and the Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Education and Training Board. It was viewed by thousands of visitors to Bloom during the bank holiday weekend.
The mural took Kate approximately 25 hours over two days to complete and was executed at the request of the garden designer, who was aware of the artist’s work. Kate, a native of Poland who has lived in Ireland for 13 years, previously worked in a plant nursery for eight years before deciding to become a full-time artist about two years ago. The Civic Centre and Bloom murals are the first outdoor wall paintings of her professional career.
‘I was happy to get the opportunity to do them’, said Kate, who explained that the Gorey mural resulted from an approach to the Municipal District Council by Claire O’Connell of the Gaslamp Gallery. ‘There was great reaction from people on the day I was doing it and I’ve received a lot of positive feedback since,’ she said. ‘Lots of people thought the whole wall was being painted. Hopefully it will become a bigger project. It would be nice to see the council commissioning other artists to do work.’