Painter Janet Pierce on how she used the voice of Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill while creating her latest work.
Janet Pierce was born in Scotland and grew up in there and Northern Ireland. She studied at the Edinburgh College of Art. Currently based in Dublin, she has been working on a new exhibition in her Temple Bar studio.
In the morning before Janet Pierce starts to paint, she goes through a warmup ritual of dancing and playing the bodhrán to a CD of traditional music. She says this puts her mind at ease before starting the creative process,
I start to dream and the paintings start to come.
Janet Pierce has been listening to the music of Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill while working on her current project.
Her voice is like a poet and a warrior so strong and so powerful and yet so beautiful and gut wrenching. I would love if I could get that kind of quality in the painting.
Janet Pierce’s latest exhibition 'Cianalas’ is at the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast. It is here that she meets singer Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill and shows her the paintings, explaining that
My work is also about this vulnerability and power...it’s in your music.
This episode of ‘Cúrsaí Ealaíne’ was broadcast on 15 February 1998.
'Cúrsaí Ealaíne' was an Irish-language television arts programme particularly noted for its coverage of the visual arts. It was first broadcast on 2 October 1994 and continued until 2000. Presenters included Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin, Marina Ní Dhubháin and Harry McGee.
