KATE CREATES HER OWN HSE HEROES PORTRAIT
Local artist captures ICU nurse
GOREY ARTIST Kate Kos featured on RTÉ’s Ireland On Call after she took part in the Portraits for HSE Heroes initiative, creating a colourful portrait of Wexford General Hospital ICU nurse Leanne Sheridan.
Kate responded to a photograph of Leanne, and created her piece at her own studio in Gorey, which has been shut to the public since mid-March.
Artist Bernadette Doolan, who started the project in Ireland at the end of April, said that she hopes the portraits will be a legacy to the people hard at work during this extraordinary time.
Leanne was nominated to be drawn by her friend, Kate O’Donnell, and received her portrait as a gift in the post from Kate.
Leanne described the picture as ‘gorgeous’ and said that this initiative was an amazing way for frontline staff to be recognised, as the hospital setting is such a strange place to be during Covid-19.
Kate said that she was very happy with the reaction, as the Portraits for HSE Heroes resonates with so many, showing the faces behind the masks and humanising our frontline staff.
Kate has been getting creative in her own way too and taking in her surroundings during the time of the Covid-19 restrictions but without giving regular art lessons and workshop demonstrations, things have been difficult.
However, she is trying to stay positive and has joined a group of 20 other artists who have been taking part in a daily Art in Lockdown exhibition which has been getting a great response, and has travelled far and wide online.
This has also generated more interest in her work, as she takes in the landscapes within her five kilometre radius.