About this Event
Art, Poetry, Wine and Cheese!
Join us for a creative and delightful evening at the Bundoran Community Centre. Immerse yourself in the world of art and poetry from local creatives while enjoying the perfect pairing of wine and cheese. Start your Féile na mBan festival in style! Art and Poetry provided by:
Brigid Birney
Miriam Doran
Maria Noonan-McDermott
Gillian Wright
Sherrie Scott
Marion Rose McFadden
Margaret Rattigan
Brigid Birney
Originally from Donegal and now living in Leitrim, Brigid studied Graphic Design at Letterkenny Institute of Technology (Now ATU). Her love of Fine Art took over from Graphic Design and she has been painting and exhibiting throughout Ireland for the past twenty years. She has combined her role of mother with painting primarily in oils and acrylics.
‘’Colour Light and Movement encapsulate Brigid’s work. Under the guidance of her hands, flowers burst open and display their grandeur. Pulsating with energy, her work is a feast for the eyes’’. I observe first, then paint from memory. I would describe my work as spontaneous and try to portray the vibrancy of life. This allows me freedom in the application of the paint while covering the canvas with feelings and imagination.
Most recently she was commissioned by Knock Shrine to paint the backdrop to the Crib in their Parish Church. Herstory, who focus on promoting famous Irish Women selected a painting of St Brigid to feature in their City Exhibition where Irish art was projected in large scale onto famous Irish Buildings. Her painting was projected and illuminated the GPO for the first weekend of February, celebrating St Brigid and her strength and the strength of women in Ireland who changed the face of Ireland. Her work also decorates Neven Maguires’ MacNean House and Restaurant, since their refurbishment and has resulted in her work being more widely exhibited.
In recent years her work was selected by the Donegal Diaspora to present to winners of the Donegal Diaspora Person of the Year Award. These people included Tom O’Neill, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, (son of the late Tip O’ Neill), and Brian Schweitzer, Governor of Montana.
Her work has featured in various Interior Magazines including Ireland's Homes Interiors and Living, Ulster Tatler, Galway Now, Upstairs Downstairs and recently Irish Country Magazine. Her work also was featured in a book by Photographer Mike Bunn which featured Leitrim Artists.
Brigid has exhibited extensively throughout Ireland in both solo and group shows at various galleries including Bold Art Gallery, Galway, N17 Art Gallery, Tuam, Clan Art Gallery, Enniskillen, The Cristeph Art Gallery, Letterkenny, and The Crooked House Art Gallery, Donegal Town. Her work is currently available in Hambly and Hambly Art Gallery at Dunbar House, Enniskillen, Kennys of Lahinch Art
Gallery, Lahinch, The Leitrim Design House, Carrick on Shannon. Her studio is open and work can be viewed by appointment.
In October 2022 Brigid completed her Diploma in Holistic Integrated Creative Art Therapy and is currently using this qualification as another dimension to her career as an Artist.
Miriam Venables Doran
I was born in New Zealand and have been residing in Donegal for the past 20 years. Prior to that, I lived in London for many years where I studied all aspects of art, including Practice & Theory in Modern Art at Chelsea School of Art. This was a stepping stone to further avenues. It lead to running a small gallery studio located just of King's Road, showing works by local painters and printmakers. It was experimental and moderately successful and great fun!
I continued my studies and graduated in 2017 from IT Sligo with a BA Merit 1 in Fine Art.
I consider myself a painter's painter with a Social Political twist. My style is expressive and loose, my mediums varied, depending on what fits the project at hand. There has to be something that sparks ones excitement! I love searching for found objects, especially from the sea. I have environmental concerns, as the human race are contributing to the scary phenomena of unstable weather patterns.
I have exhibited extensively in both solo and group exhibitions during my career. My most recent solo exhibition was held during the Summer 2023 in Solas Art Gallery, Ballinamore, Co.Leitrim.
My artwork has also been displayed in Dublin, London, Paris, New Zealand and Germany.
Maria Noonan-McDermott
Originally from Donegal, Irish artist and poet Maria Noonan McDermott, a professional artist for over thirty years, lives and works from her studio in Kinlough, Co. Leitrim.
I began my artistic career in Dublin in 1985 and qualified in Fashion and Design. I returned to college and completed a certificate in visual education before continuing on to study Fine Art. In the year 1990, I had my first solo exhibition of paintings. The feedback and encouragement I received helped direct me on my current path.
I believe that art reflects life and we bring our personal self, an element of who we are, to each and every work. My paintings represent not only a visual impression but also my emotional response to the subject matter. The natural landscape around me, the quality of light and shade with its changing vistas, ignite possibilities that have influenced my work continuously over the years. I am equally fascinated by the people that the land holds so tightly and am firmly bound in kinship with their poetic writing, their stories and soulful lyrics.
I've always been in awe of the storyteller, those gifted people who so fluidly guide you into their fantasy worlds, who submerge you so deeply, you cry, laugh and often seethe with anger and frustration. To me, this is true magic, possessing the rare skill of creating something from nothing, evoking such passion and emotion.
Growing up I found words didn't come so easily to me, art and writing became my outlet. I was
transformed into the 'Cailleach Feasa', the storyteller. I recorded and recollected all the tales from times gone by, breathing life back into places and quirky characters I met along the way.
I was raised in a small village in Donegal and like most small communities in Ireland, it was filled with the most amazing characters.
As a child, my head was filled with fantastical stories told and dramatised by neighbours and family, the gatekeepers of local history. These tales, were, of course, exaggerated and embellished with such fun and gusto, like only true Irish seanchai can, that I couldn't help growing up with a great love of the people around me and all their fascinating antics.
In my work, I narrate the stories with colour and humour as over the years they've formed and shaped in my memory.
My paintings become the text and you the reader and as the reader, you are challenged to participate and choose your own journey. Thus, enabling the story to live all over again!This attachment is ingrained in my work and I strive to bring forth its warmth in the most honest and pure
way I know how.
Website: https://www.marianoonan-mcdermott.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/m.noonanmcdermott
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noonanmcdermott
Sherrie Scott
Sherrie Scott has worked as a costume designer and creative facilitator through Theatre, Film, and Carnival since the 80’s. Her Diploma Central School of Fashion London 1984 Advanced Diploma in Millinery Kensington and Chelsea 1995 and Btec in eMedia 2001 grounds her work as a mixed media artist.
Through her company Creative Energyworks Sherrie enables creativity and wellbeing workshops for adults. Based in Rossnowlagh Sherrie is an artist inspired by her year-round swimming in the sea. She takes her inspiration from Donegal’s natural coastline where the Sea brings to shore its flotsam and jetsam. Sherrie is interested in how the elements weather the land and creates with what she finds from natures treasures and lost or discarded items discovered across the beach.
She is inspired by colour, texture and the unseen possibilities of surprise that she encounters. Her mixed media images combine photography, textiles and paint. Founder of the Mertales writers’ group Ballyshannon, her poetry originates from the spontaneous happenstance alive on the shorelines of her life.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Bundoran Community Centre, Main St, Bundoran, Ireland
EUR 0.00
