Hamilton Gallery countdown to our St Brigid’s Day exhibition at 12 Star Gallery, Europe House London, is underway.

The exhibition will open to the public from January 23rd and run until February 1st, St Brigid’s Day, and it is part of the Irish Embassy in London’s St Brigid’s Day Celebration of Women and creativity.

In the run up to our opening night in London we bring you a daily blog with a selection of the 90 works by Irish women artists that will be shown at the exhibition.

We will include interviews and insights from the artists involved as well as other news and developments relating to events at the 12 Star Gallery in London which will occur in compliment to the exhibition.

Tonight our artists are Molly Judd, Rebecca Jobson, Josephine Kelly and Elizabeth Kinsella.

We also include the poem “Matisse Woman” by Leland Bardwell. Lelands poem “St Brigid’s Day 1989” was circulated to all participating artists as the thematic inspiration for the exhibition.

Molly Judd was born 1991 in Wicklow, Ireland. She began her studies at 18 at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy.  In 2011, she began an apprenticeship with Odd Nerdrum and studied at his Atelier in both Norway and Paris. Molly continues to paint from her studio in Westmeath.   

 “In this portrait my focus was to express the turning from darkness to light. The painting represents the halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox also known as St. Brigid’s Day.”

Rebecca Jobson was born in Dublin. She currently lives and works in County Sligo. She studied at City and Guilds and Wimbledon School of Art in London. She has exhibited nationally and internationally with her works held in private and public collections.

 “The artists’ mother, while gathering the rushes to thatch the roof of her first marital home, lost her wedding ring. Personifying a story of love is a powerful, resilient and beautiful woman looking back on her life and to the land that sustains her.”

Josephine Kelly

I was born in Donegal in 1975.I graduated from the University of Ulster, Belfast in 1997 with a degree in Fine Art and returned to Buncrana where I live and work.

My work is inspired by the local landscape and my daily passage through it. These works are a visual diary of season, weather and light.rigid’s Day.Portugal.”

Elizabeth Kinsella: Fine Art lecturer for 26 years in Sligo. Recent exhibitions 'Unfolding the Archive', NCAD Gallery, FE Mc William Gallery and Bankstreet Gallery Sheffield and 'Hybrid' exhibition/residency, Redline Art Centre, Denver.

“ The poem evoked St Brigid's Cross convent classes, hands too small, precious reeds, stiff card jangly coloured struggles, battered trials, jagged cruciform, tempered nun spinning out staccato notes.”