Fran Woolf

Bio

Fran Woolf graduated in 2014, from the Honours Degree programme based on Sherkin Island, West Cork, gaining a BA Honours in Visual Art. Her previous career was as a District Nurse and Palliative Care Nurse Specialist. She was awarded full membership of Cork Printmakers in 2015, after gaining an Open Access Award while still a student. She attended the Royal Academy, London, studying Life Drawing and subsequently studied Egg Tempera Painting at the National Gallery, London. Artist Residency Awards have included IMMA, Dublin; Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre; Cill Rialaig; and Cork Midsummer Festival. Her work has been exhibited at Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre; The Pier, Skibbereen; Cill Rialaig; Morris Gallery; Solomon Fine Art; Lavitt Gallery and Cork Midsummer Festival.

Artist Statement

I am primarily a photographer, painter and printmaker. However my work often dictates exploration of many different mediums and methods. I make or adapt tools and materials to enhance authenticity. My cameras are digital or analogue, I use film in old cameras, including a 1910 bellows camera, a medium format Bronica and the pinhole cameras that I make. I create photograms in the darkroom without a camera. These methods allow for a creative interplay with the tools which I really value, a partnership with a degree of serendipity – and a lot of trial and error. I grind pigments to make my own paints, using honey and beeswax from local bees, combined with oil of spike lavender. My studio is in an ancient cow barn, attached to the old farmhouse where I live, perched high on a rock in West Cork. There are 7 acres of wild land & trees surrounding it, which are rewilding themselves with some help from me. It is being embedded in the land here that provides inspiration, heart and purpose to my work. I seek to capture fleeting, transitory moments, to fix a sense of place, sometimes to share a quest or a sense of belonging – striving to evoke shared recognition with the viewer in my art work.

Membership: Backwater Artists Network