Jenny Fitzgerald

Artist Bio

Jenny Fitzgerald is a Cork based artist, aged twenty-three, who has recently graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design with an honours Batchelors degree of Fine art. She is currently completing a residency in the James Barry exhibition centre, MTU, and is a practicing artist based in Over the Line Studios.

Fitzgerald is predominantly an oil-based painter, depicting and highlighting women in history. Her practice is both research and practice based.

Artist Statement

Jenny Fitzgerald’s artwork is derived from the absence of female representation in history and aims to rewrite the history that was whitewashed from our history books.

During her graduate degree exhibition, she researched and represented the women of the revolution in Ireland from the period 1916-1922, highlighting their contributions and courageous actions which have been overlooked in Irish history. This led to the research of the establishment of Cumann na mBan and Inghinidhe na hÉireann. Courageous women such as Countess Markovich, Ada English, and Mary MacSwiney, to name a few, rebelled, fought, and supported the free state movement.

Her artwork explores loss of identity, historical inaccuracy of a patriarchal system and the role women played in a suppressive Irish society during a revolution.

Currently, Jenny Fitzgerald is delving further into female representation in Irish history. She is exploring femininity in Irish mythology before a patriarchal society when women were depicted as powerful creators of the land such as ‘An Cailleach’ and death such as ‘The Banshee’. This research is communicated to us through the medium of oil paint on canvas.

Website 

www.jennyfitzgerald.net

Membership: Backwater Artists Network