Bridget’s back on Leeside

A Cork-born visual artist will return to Leeside later this month for her first solo exhibition in the city in 22 years.

Bridget Flannery’s ‘Undersong’ will take up residence at the Lavit Gallery on Wandesford Quay from 20 October.

The series evolved from sketches and other works on paper made over a 6-year period on the Slieve Bloom Mountains in Laois, near where Flannery now lives.

The resulting paintings in watercolour and acrylic explore the dense colour and layers of bog, earth and sky.

Flannery said: “To be out in the landscape, seascape, streetscape, is important to the making of work. Time can be spent drawing, working up detailed colour studies, often using natural pigments as in crushed stones, earth or plants. I walk a lot and use photos to grasp at something glimpsed. My phone is in one pocket and the sketchbook is in the other, both ready to record in their own way.

“The artist Paul Klee’s statement that ‘one eye sees and the other eye feels’ is an appropriate way to describe the making of the work and to how it evolves. It’s also important to make a lot of work, as work makes work. One piece leads to another.”

After graduating in 1981, Bridget received the Student of the Year Award from Cork Arts Society (now trading as Lavit Gallery) and subsequently featured in numerous annual group exhibitions at the gallery including a Student of the Year 40th Retrospective Exhibition and Bridget Flannery Selects, an exhibition she curated, both taking place in 2008.

Bridget’s work is held in public and private collections nationally and internationally, including Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, Boyle Civic Trust, Carlow Art Collection, Cesis Museum Latvia, Crawford Gallery Cork, Four Seasons Hotel Group, IBEC, Office of Public Works, Opera House Cork, SETU Carlow, University College Cork and Wexford County Council.