St Brigid’s Day

Contemporary Exhibition | 90 Women Artists

The 12 Star Gallery London – January 23rd – February 1st 2019

Hamilton Gallery Sligo – 16th February – 31st March

Lisa Gingles “Luck & Irony” Pencil & Found paper on board.

The iconic early Christian symbol St Brigid has been chosen to serve as a catalyst for 90 invited Irish women artists to create an original painting for this exhibition.

Folk custom, the four seasons, women’s lives and crafts, poetry, all intersect at the 1st of February feast-day of Saint Brigid in Ireland. What is celebrated is the rebirth of the living earth; it was usual in some places to turn a sod of earth with the spade, the work of cultivation beginning again.  Many customs, especially around food and cattle, are connected with the day, but the best known was the making of St Brigid’s crosses out of straw or rushes.

Women’s political journey in the last century of Irish history makes it right to choose the day for special celebration of Irish women artists and the works of art are further held in focus by their relation to the poem “St Brigid’s Day 1989” by Leland Bardwell, which positions the poet as observer, half outside the culture that she watches.

This exhibition is a dynamic and vibrant contemporary response, to the import and changing cultural significance of powerful traditional female symbolism not just in Ireland, but in all contemporary societies.

Organised by Hamilton Gallery, Sligo, Ireland, with the support of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in association with the Irish Embassy to Great Britain as part of the annual St Brigid’s Day events celebrating the creativity of women.