Laura Fitzgerald is a visual artist from a small mountain farm in Co. Kerry, working across drawing, painting, text & video. Her work focuses on the rapid changes she and others are experiencing in the modern world. She frames these experiences from the viewpoint of a stone. A stone can be submerged, half-submerged, it can rocket through the air like a scud missile or a meteorite. She is trying to tell stories from these different vantage points, trying to make herself as stone-like as possible. In this sense, she is telling it like it is, as influenced by writers such as Lydia Davis and Donald Bartelme. Laura Fitzgerald's work is trying to be useful. And while she is worried that making art is – in fact – useless, she seeks solace in the notion it can be so radically useless that it can resist the profit-driven impetus of modern life. In a sense the work is sincerely absurdist in its own endeavours. While looking at ideas relating to the neoliberal turn, she concentrates on using humour as a tool; an antidepressant and a coping strategy to everyday lived experience.
http://laurafitzgeraldfrominch.com/
Education
2011 – 2013 Fine Art Painting Masters, Royal College of Art, London
2004 – 2007 Fine Art Painting BA First Class Hons, National College of Art and Design Dublin
Awards
2020 Emergent Award, Wexford County Council Arts Department and Wexford Arts Centre in partnership with IT Carlow Wexford Campus School of Art and Design. Mentorship dream team; James Merrigan & Mick O'Hara
2020 Golden Fleece Shortlist
2019 Arts Council of Ireland Bursary Award
2019 Project Award, Arts Council Ireland
2018 Travel and Training Award, Arts Council Ireland
2017 Claremorris Open, award for video work P45, Ploughing up my Practice and Field Research
2016 16 x 16 Next Generation Bursary, Arts Council Ireland
2016 Travel and Training Award, Arts Council Ireland
2015 Travel and Training Award, Arts Council Ireland
2013 WW Solo Award, WW Gallery, London
2012 Royal College of Art Study Bursary, London
2011 Travel and Training Award, Arts Council Ireland
Solo Exhibitions
2020 HEADCASE, RHA Ashford Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2019 Please Proceed as Normal/Laura Fitzgerald, curated by Anne Mullee, Courthouse Gallery & S tudios, Ennistymon, Co Clare, Ireland
2017 Blue Monkey Film Night presents Laura Fitzgerald, Field Research, curated by Judith Alder, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, United Kingdom
2014 Work Related Anxieties, WW Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Group Exhibitions
2020 39th EVA International (2020/2021), various venues in Limerick, Ireland
2020 Coup de Ville (Chasing Flowers), contemporary art platform WARP, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
2020 No Pity! Galerie Michaela Stock, Vienna, Austria
2019 Periodical Review #9 ...and the days run away like wild horses over the hills, Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin, Ireland
2019 Small Night Zine – ARRANGEMENTS, a zine project by James Merrigan, Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin, Ireland
2019 Embodiment, curated by Helen Carey & Michaela Stock, Galerie Michaela Stock, Vienna, Austria
2019 'Agnès and I', curated by Aisling Prior on behalf of Black Church Print Studio Project funded by Dublin City Council, The Library Project, 4 Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland
2019 Atlantic, RCC Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny, Donegal, Ireland
2019 Between Structure and Agency Touring Program Ireland, curated by Alice Butler, LUX Collection
2018 FUTURES, Series 3, Episode 2, curated by Patrick T.Murphy and Ruth Carroll, RHA, Dublin 2, Ireland
2018 BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND AGENCY + SAOIRSE WALL, curated by Alice Butler, Tyneside Cinema Newcastle, United Kingdom
2018 A PORTABLE HOLE, Art Licks Weekend 2018, curated by Kirsty White, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London, United Kingdom
2018 Art Works VISUAL Carlow, curated by Emma-Lucy O'Brien, selected by Orla Barry & Seán Kissane, Carlow, Ireland
2018 Terra Nostra, curated by Karla Sanchez, Wexford County Council, Carricklawn, Wexford, Ireland
2018 Lucian's Neighbours, residency programme exhibition, IMMA, Dublin, Ireland
2018 Peripheries 2018: DESTROY ALL HEROES, Gorey School of Art, Gorey, Co. Wexford, Ireland
2017 Claremorris Open Exhibition, curated by Tom Morton, Town Hall Gallery, Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Ireland
2017 The Ships are always there, CW Contemporary, curated by Chiara Williams, Crate Project Space, Margate, United Kingdom
2017 The Skin of the Eye, Screening Program, initiated by Elisabeth Molin, Zona Mista, London, United Kingdom
2017 Granddad's House, curated by the Sad Swedish Curator , 935 Park Avenue, New York, United States of America
2015 Sunscreen, Westminster Waste, London, United Kingdom
2014 A place of which we know no certainty, curated by Peta Rake, The International Studio & Curatorial Program Gallery, New York, United States of America
2014 Reframing the Domestic in Irish Art, curated by Dr Jane Humphries, Aoife Ruane and Amanda Coogan, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, United Kingdom
2014 Please Stand By, A night of Artists' Film curated by Emily Austin and Rebecca Glover, Chisenhale Studios London, United Kingdom
2013 Royal College of Art MA Degree Show 2013, The Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
2013 RCA Summer Show, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
2013 PILOT, curated by Philipp Dorl and Suzanne Posthumus, 42 King Henry's Road, London 2013 TELEVISION, curated by Sarah Lundy, Tactic, Sample-Studios Cork Ireland
2013 Note to Self, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art London WIP Show, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
2012 Holding Together, Holding Together – An exhibition to celebrate 50 years of the Modern Art Collection of Trinity College Dublin' at The Douglas Hyde Gallery, the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
2010 Preponderance of the Small, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Residencies
2018 – 2020 Fire Station Artists' Studios Dublin 2018
2018 WARP Artist Village, Eindhoven, Netherlands
2017 – 2018 Lucian Freud Residency, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
2017 Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Residency Annaghmakerrig
2016 The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York
2015 The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York