Introducing

Loretta Fitzgerald

Loretta Fitzgerald is a realitively "new" artist who is creating her own wave of interest around the West Cork art scene. Her most recent exhibition is on display at the Cnoc Bui Gallery, Union Hall.

Loretta is originally from Australia, where she spent a lifetime caring for others as a nurse and as an academic in nursing and health care. While parenting two children, she tried to find time to express her creativity as a hobby through making "stuff" using mostly textiles, fabric and mosaic.

Loretta recounted a formulative experience while working in the Solomon Islands where she felt people just "learned to be," shaping her attitude towards make do and mend.

It was on a teaching exchange to Sweden that Loretta took the opportunity to visit Ireland for the first time. Lotetta's grandfather originally came from the village of Goleen, not far from her current home. It was that strong feeling of "home" that eventually brought Lotetta back to West Cork in 2016, where she worked as a night palliative care nurse for the Irish Cancer Society until she had to retire.

"My transition from caring for people at the end of life and their families to caring for the earth was natural and probably inevitable."

Since then, Loretta has been able to explore her creativity on a full-time basis.

Loretta has a straight talking and honest approach to her work. She tells how she visited a local beach with her friend Jane and dragged a load of "rubbish" back to her house and set about using it as her source of material for a project.

As Loretta says, "There was a mass of tangled ropes, nets, seaweed, cans, bottles, etc, on that tiny beach. It suddenly seemed to represent an incredible resource as well as a manky mess."

A strong & powerful statement was delivered in a soft but determined voice. Loretta's last project, the unravelling globe of fabric, is another piece that once again makes a statement about the consequences of the waste we are confronted with on a daily basis

I get the sense as this artist gradually finds a new and confident voice, we can expect to be furher challenged and inspired to take a closer look at ourselves, our place & our own role in the world around us.

Washed, woven, crocheted and knitted into bowls, bird houses & decoration. Taking the unthinkingly jetisoned detritus of others to create beautiful colourful forms. In her own way attempting to healing the world around her.