Artist praises Moate college as she prepares to launch solo exhibition
An Offaly artist who credits her enrolment in an art course at Moate Business College as the catalyst for turning her long-held dream of becoming an artist into a reality, is set to launch her first solo art exhibition this Thursday, April 3.
The exhibition, which is due to launch in Tullamore Library at 6.30pm on Thursday evening, will feature the artistic talents of Genevieve Murphy, who will exhibit over 20 paintings from her collection featuring a range of styles, textures and mediums. The exhibition – called 'The Ubiquitous Collection' - is set to run throughout the month of April.
Bestselling author, stand-up comedian and mental health advocate, Rory O'Connor (aka 'Rory's Stories), who is Genevieve's nephew, will travel to Tullamore to officially launch the event.
The Offaly artist cannot remember a time when she wasn't doodling with a sketchpad in her hand, and she says her love of art started at a very early age with “a simple box of paints” she got from Santa at her home in the small townland of Coolagh, Geashill.
Growing up in an era when art was “a very overlooked subject” in the education system and was not viewed as being the pathway to a career, Genevieve says there was “no encouragement” for art when she was in secondary school, despite the fact that she had an obvious love and flair for all things artistic.
Becoming a young bride (at just 19 years of age!) and rearing a family of three sons and one daughter, Neil, Michelle, Bréifne and David, with her husband, Brendan Murphy from Portarlington, conspired to put Genevieve's art “on the back burner” once again. In a bid to keep her artistic streak alive, however, she turned to floristry and opened a flower shop in Mountmellick in 1990 which operated for over a decade. She also taught floristry classes in the adult education sector in both Athlone and Kildare, as well as organising flower arranging classes for smaller groups at a number of venues across the Midlands.
In 2017, Genevieve enrolled on The National Certificate in Art and Design Level 5 Course at Moate Business College and she says this was the push she needed to set her on the path to becoming a full-time artist.
“I honestly couldn't speak highly enough of Moate Business College,” she says .“The atmosphere there was so inclusive and encouraging and our lecturers, Patrick Bennis and Fiona Bracken, were absolutely brilliant.”
Genevieve points out that she was “rearing kids” at an age when a lot of her peers were in College, so getting a second chance at pursuing her love of art in a college setting was “a pure gift” that she wholeheartedly embraced. Her stint in Moate encouraged her to enroll on a full-time Art and Design Course in Galway Technical Institute (GTI), a college of further education in Galway city.
“Covid hit when I was in GTI, so we had to switch to remote learning which, in itself, was another steep learning curve for me because technology would not be my strong point,” she says. A testatment to Genevieve's skill as an artist is the fact that she achieved distinctions in all her modules, both in Moate and in GTI. She then applied for, and was accepted, onto the Fine Art programme in the National College of Art and Design but as of yet she has not taken up the offer.
“Every day is a school day in the world of art. You could be learning forever and sometimes the best teacher is just observation,” she says, adding that she gets a lot of inspiration from nature and the world around her. “I have 48,000 pictures on my phone, and I am very inspired by the beauty of the Midlands, particularly Lough Boora, the Grand Canal and even my own back garden and I draw inspiration from everything around me.”
Genevieve, who has seven grandchildren, has a studio behind her house in Mucklagh's Tegan Court, from where she works both on her own paintings and on commissions. She is also very passionate about teaching art, and currently teaches cultural art to students in the Lakelands Academy in Tullamore, Athlone and Mullingar, as well as giving private lessons and teaching art groups.
With such a wide range of influences, Genevieve Murphy finds it difficult to describe her artistic style. “I love cultural art, religious art, working with encaustic paint, charcoal, silhouette illustrations, basically any art work that tells a story and I am very heavily influenced by Irish artists, both past and present, and by Irish history”.