My name is Liz Culllinane and I am an artist, designer, storyteller and academic researcher. My art and research takes an artist led approach to documentary filmmaking, visual arts and theatrical/operatic storytelling.
Mary Swanzy is a long time hero of mine. My biography and timeline published as part of the Modern Masters Series at IMMA is the highpoint of the 12 years of my academic research into her life. This followed from my original MFA from Crawford Art College: Mary Swanzy 1882-1978: An Evaluation of her Career; This is our gift, our portion apart. My writing on Swanzy has been published in the Irish Independent Mary Swanzy - The unsung hero of Irish modernism and more recently in Fortnight Magazine: Politics and Art: Mary Swanzy 1882 - 1978.
Alongside my gallery talks during the IMMA retrospective, as artist in residence during the show I brought Swanzy to life for a larger audience.
Additional gallery talks included A Journey through modernism in the age of war (2019) which was given in the Crawford Gallery of Art as part of the nationwide Bealtaine festival celebrating the arts and creativity as we age. This talk created a valuable picture of the times in which Swanzy's works were created as well detailing the rich social history behind some of her less familiar styles and developments
As a multi disciplinary artist I continue to bring the work of Mary Swanzy to larger audiences and am currently exploring Opera as a mechanism for doing this. Opera suggests to me the proper home for a story as large as hers and for the turbulent times in which she lived. Currently I am exploring OperaInABox. This uses my innovation, art, storytelling and filmmaking skills to produce a virtual opera in an old school scenography model box. This next phase of my work will highlight Swanzy's paintings through the lens of two World Wars an aspect of her career that has not been highlighted to date.
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