Leanne McDonagh: Community & Connection

Leanne McDonagh: Community & Connection
26 September to 31 October

Leanne McDonagh is an Irish artist from the Traveller community. McDonagh records her community’s life and heritage from an insider perspective, subtly yet vividly capturing its circumstances and experiences. As she puts it, “If somebody else is showing what it is to look like a Traveller, I am showing what it is to feel like a Traveller.” McDonagh’s images portray family meetings, celebrations, scenes of labour and trade, domestic interiors and activities, and public gatherings. They emphasise both the distinct characteristics of Traveller culture and universal aspects of social relations.

Community & Connection constitutes the most comprehensive presentation of McDonagh’s work to date. It features a newly commissioned series of screenprints alongside a broad selection of photographs made since 2011. The exhibition is organised by Sirius Arts Centre and curated by Miguel Amado, Director and realised with funding from the Arts Council through a Project Award. Its presentation at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre is part of a tour also including Sirius Art Centre and Limerick City Gallery of Art, produced by Rayne Booth. The tour is delivered with funding from the Arts Council through the Touring of Work Scheme.

The exhibition at will be accompanied by a public engagement programme working with the West Cork Traveller Centre, Family Resource Centres and West Cork primary and second level schools. The programme at Uillinn is supported by Ecclesiastical Insurance.

Leanne McDonagh is part of the Traveller community, a group recognised as an ethnic minority by the Irish state that has been historically identified by their nomadic lifestyle. Travellers have continuously faced discrimination from the wider, settled population. As McDonagh became aware of outsiders’ distorted conceptions of Travellers, she dedicated her practice to establishing an alternative vision – a “counternarrative,” as she puts it – that captures more authentic views.

McDonagh has been employing photography, and more recently screenprinting, as her mediums. Both are image-making technologies that ostensibly involve a direct relationship between artist and subject. Yet she has developed a style that challenges such understanding. She comments: “I like to experiment with the processes I use to push boundaries, transgressing the standard or expected visual outcome. By doing so, I attain a visuality that is elusive and ethereal.” One such approach is her slow-exposure technique, which deliberately blurs the depicted people and their scenario, collapsing the boundaries between bodies and space. Intrigue and hazy vibrancy suggest a fluidity between the camera’s eye and reality that speaks to the transient nature of the Traveller community.

While McDonagh’s first series were in black and white, she has since adopted colour in her photography, and the images are luminous, with soft hues. In some instances, she highlights certain aspects with hand-drawn marking, layering narrative onto the image. She expands this methodology through screenprinting, which enables the juxtaposition of various photographs to mix details and enhance tonalities.

McDonagh relates her practice to the therapeutic notion of ‘glimmers’ (the opposite of traumatic ‘triggers’). Glimmers are atmospheres where one has a sense of safety with themselves and others, the environment they are in, and the relationships they hold. They can help in dealing with traumas passed intergenerationally, and broadly reflect the artist’s experience of the Traveller community.

Leanne McDonagh lives and works in County Cork. Since her debut in 2015, she has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including holding a solo show at Triskel Arts Centre in Cork City, and participating in group shows at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Crawford Art Gallery and The Glucksman, both in Cork City, and the Irish Arts Centre in New York. Her work has also been commissioned by festivals such as Cork Midsummer Festival. Her work is part of the collections of the Arts Council, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and University College Cork. She is the recipient of various grants from the Arts Council, including the Project, Next Generation, and Bursary awards. She is a graduate of the Crawford College of Art & Design, Munster Technological University.

Image: Leanne McDonagh, Pavee Presence, 2020  (detail), Inkjet print, 59 x 83 cm, Courtesy of the artist

Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre acknowledges the financial support of The Arts Council  / An Chomhairle Ealaíon in making these exhibitions possible.