Kate Hennessy's 'Chroma' exhibition, which opened at the Hunt Museum last week is a wonderful feast of colour, joy and creativity from a local artist who has a great passion for her home town (article submitted by Nigel Dugdale).
By guest contributor Nigel Dugdale, Dugdale's Limerick Blog
Kate Hennessy was born in 1945 the day before Hitler died although she insists there was no connection between the events. She is a youthful person with a kind face and exudes a joie de vivre that is slightly infectious. Her exhibition, which opened at the Hunt Museum last week is a wonderful feast of colour, joy and creativity from a local artist who has a great passion for her home town.
From a very young age Kate always had a love of drawing and painting. She was educated at the Salesian Convent on Fernbank for both her primary and secondary education.
“One of my earliest memories is at seven years of age as a student in Salesians”, Kate tells me. “Sister Mary Gillen, recognising my abilities, handed this young girl a piece of chalk and invited me to draw the entire Christmas story on a long blackboard in one of the classrooms. It was a moment I will never forget. I felt like Picasso and Michelangelo all rolled into one”.
Kate remembers her artistic passion getting her into trouble during her school days. “I was a little too fond of doodling and I would spend hours drawing little figures in the margins of my schoolbooks. The nuns didn’t like that at all”.
Kate grew up in the days when families would gather to say the rosary every night. Every evening after the rosary her mother would ask what she wanted to be when she left school.
“I announced that I wanted to be an artist. My mother’s reaction suggested this was something she wouldn’t countenance. She responded by saying I could be anything I wanted to be but certainly not an artist”, Kate remembers.
In an attempt to curb Kate’s determination to go down the artistic route her parents sent her to Ms McNamara’s High School where she was trained in clerical skills.
“Despite the fact that the training at High School was valuable I was very unhappy. My dream was to attend the art school which was then located up on Mulgrave Street just across from the prison. I suffered a lot from nightmares and panic attacks."
In the end her parents had to relent and she was accepted as a student of Jack Donovan.
“I knew in my heart that I would have to pursue my dream of becoming an artist. I went up to Jack who took me on as a student. It was a very small school at the time. Art wasn’t the most popular of careers to pursue and I was in a class of just six pupils. After years spent with the nuns in secondary schools hearing about hell, sex, damnation and the fires of hell the sense of freedom you felt in Jack Donovan’s presence was immense. You were allowed to think for yourself”.
Hennessy qualified after a few years with an art teacher’s certificate and got her first job in Dublin teaching at the Holy Faith School in Clontarf.
“It was a very large school and every week I would have to cope with 568 students in a practical art class”, she recalls. “After a while I decided to find something a little less stressful. I moved to Kilkenny and taught at the VEC which was slightly more manageable. I stayed in Kilkenny for four years and all through that time I was exhibiting and painting my own work outside of my teaching hours”.
I missed Limerick. I missed my friends. I missed the White House Bar and the social scene that Limerick offered. When I think back on that time I think Kilkenny was too small for me. It felt like I was living in the valley of the squinting windows. Everyone wanted to know who you were with, who you spoke to and who you socialised with. Limerick was always so much more cosmopolitan in my opinion. Four years in Kilkenny I returned to the city I love and have stayed here ever since.
Despite her gentle appearance Kate Hennessy is clearly a strong woman and one who is a committed feminist in her thinking.
“As far as I was concerned what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. I believed women should have the same opportunities and freedom as men. Limerick was a place that allowed me to express myself without judgement. My father told me that nice girls didn’t go to pubs but that didn’t stop me! My parents were very conservative people. My father was in the confraternity. I was the eldest of a family of six and parents were always that bit stricter with the eldest”.
Travel is something that has played a major role in Kate’s life and work. She reminisces on a time when travel was a very different concept.
“Air fares were sky high and getting to far off places was a huge challenge”, she says. “My first trip abroad started with me taking a cattle boat from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead and then a train down to London. It wasn’t a glamourous means of travel but it got me there”.
Kate would regularly take arduous journeys from Limerick taking days to reach the likes of Florence, Barcelona and other European cities.
“I didn’t fly until I was 40 years of age. Now I am proud to say I have travelled extensively across Europe, North Africa, Turkey, India and the Philippines always gathering inspiration for my work along the way”.
Kate gives great credit to a man named Sandy Barclay Russell as one of those who has given her the greatest inspiration during her life.
“He was a wonderful man. He was an art educator and also spent a great part of his life working for the British Council in Ethiopia. I met him when I was twenty while he was living in Parteen. He loved my work and bought quite a number of pieces. He was convinced that I would love Iran. Years later I finally got there. I learned Farsi from an Iranian refugee in Limerick before going on the trip. Iran is a magnificent country and one that has inspired quite a lot of my work. George Bush called it the Axis of Evil but I call it the Axis of History. It is where east meets west. It boasts the most beautiful Islamic architecture. The palaces, the fountains and the bridges will warm any soul."
Hennessy loves the visual stimulation of finding something new on her travels. Colour plays a huge part in her work.
“I always get inspired by what I see around the world. The tile-work in the mosques of Iran is something to behold. The carpets, the bazaars, the laneways and the markets of far off places can’t but bring joy to your heart.
I’ve never been on a sun holiday in my life. I would be bored stiff. I explore places. I taste the food, take in the culture and listen to the music of the places that I visit”.
Kate is famous for the sketchbooks she has created down through the years. These wonderfully illustrated notebooks capture the sights and sounds of the places that she has visited. A number of the sketchbooks are on display as part of the Hunt Museum exhibition.
“Every time I visit a new place I bring my notebook, a fine pen and some watercolours and I draw what I see. I could be sitting in café gazing at a palm tree, a lake or a doorway; I sketch anything that interests me. I also keep a diary of where I went on a particular day, what I ate or who I met.
When I look back on the sketchbooks it allows me to almost go back in time to that particular day. It brings my memories alive. There is a huge difference between taking a photograph and doing a drawing. When you draw you really begin to see the detail that no photograph can capture”.
Kate has exhibited her work on many occasions down through the years. In Limerick her work has been seen at the Belltable, the 75 Gallery and the Bishop’s Palace. Her life’s dream was always to exhibit in a large gallery space and the opportunity came when she approached the team at the Hunt Museum 18 months ago.
“When I put in my proposal to the Hunt Museum it was warmly received and I was humbled to have my show accepted. Most of the exhibition consists of newly created pieces of work with some of my older pieces also on show. I was invited to create some new pieces of work which were my interpretations of pieces from John Hunt’s collection and art books”.
One thing that will strike you about the Hennessy exhibition is the vast colour that hits you from the moment you enter the gallery space. Interspersed with these vibrant pieces are black and white watercolours depicting some of the pieces from the Hunt collection. A lot of the ideas for the exhibition came from hours spent in the library of the Hunt Museum.
Kate tells me her work is inspired by the riches of life. “I love the interiors and exteriors of churches and mosques. I love exploring museums and all the various artefacts. I read the history of art, fashion and am fascinated by anything visual”, she says.
Kate notes that City of Culture in 2014 was a very exciting year for the city but is keen to stress that Limerick’s cultural identity has always been strong.
“I remember the old Savoy Cinema which also functioned as a magnificent theatre with its famous organ. I sat in the Savoy and listened to World class symphony orchestras when they came to Limerick. I remember organising talks and displaying pieces of art on the railings of the People’s Park forty years ago, long before it happened on Merrion Square in Dublin. Limerick has always been a strong player culturally and 2014 was a catalyst to bring it to a new level."
She attributes her youthful style and demeanour on good genes and a positive outlook. “I really don’t like cultures that don’t value the older generation”, she says. “Age isn’t something to be embarrassed about or to lie about. It is a fact of life. I never have a problem sharing my age because it is not something that causes me a moment of concern. I’m twenty-four years of age in my soul. I’m still curious, still creative. There no difference in my mind between me today and my younger self. As long as I am healthy, creative and alive then I am happy”.
At 70 years of age there is no sign of Kate Hennessy slowing down. She is in the process of organising her next adventure - Uzbekistan on the Great Silk Road shortly.
Chroma by Kate Hennessy continues at the Hunt Museum until January 28th.
