Programme
Supermarket Art Fair
For Supermarket Art Fair 2022, Ormston House presents a solo booth by Kerry-based artist Laura Fitzgerald in Stockholm, through the generous support of Culture Ireland and Limerick Arts Office.
Laura’s distinctly playful works illustrate the Irish landscape and farming life. Her drawings in colourful marker include handwritten notes and observations commenting on climate change and everyday concerns of artists and farmers alike. In the series The Visitors, fields and hay bales endure the unpredictable Irish weather, and Laura proposes the transformation of a cowshed into a sightseeing ark for incoming visitors to her outdoor artworld. Two videos works, P45 and Field Research Ctd., employ a documentary style – journeying through the countryside, befriending the elusive sheep-curator, and reflecting on an artist’s career trajectory in rural Kerry.
It is Laura’s sense humour and often surrealist perspective that are reflected in this year’s theme for Supermarket Art Fair. Described as a time for believing, reflecting, questioning, and connecting with something beyond our daily reality, this year’s theme is Holy Fluff. Encouraging the serious and the light-hearted together, Holy Fluff searches for meaning, but also for fun. Just as in The Ark, Laura’s multi-layered proposals mix the joyous and the serious depending on how far the viewer chooses to go.
Supermarket Art Fair 2022 will host a professional preview on Wednesday 25 May 2022 at 6pm, and opens to the general public on Thursday 26 May 2022 at 12pm. Ormston House is represented by curator Niamh Brown and communications assistant Sian Costello.
About Laura Fitzgerald
Laura Fitzgerald is a visual artist working with drawing, painting, installation, video, and text. She is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, and the Royal College of Art in London. She is a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary Award for 2021-2022. Laura was shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize in 2020, and recent exhibitions include participation in the 39th EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art with Fantasy Farming (2020) at Limerick City Gallery of Art; the site-specific mountain-based artwork Cosmic Granny (2019) in Inch, County Kerry; and Lucian’s Neighbours (2018) at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. She received the 2021 Golden Fleece Award to create a studio on her father’s land in Kerry.
About Supermarket Art Fair
Supermarket Art Fair is an international art fair for artist-run initiatives. Supermarket is dedicated to exhibiting artist-run spaces, artists’ collectives, nomadic spaces, and artists’ initiatives of all shapes and from around the world. The key aim is to display unique projects, to create opportunities for new local and international networks, and to share the strengths of the independent art world with a large audience. The art fair is accompanied by the public Talks and Performance programme with invited artists and speakers from Sweden and abroad. Supermarket takes place annually in Stockholm, Sweden.
Information
Supermarket Art Fair: 25-29 May 2022. Our thanks to Ambassador Austin Gormley and Doreen Burke, Deputy Head of Mission, at the Irish Embassy in Sweden for the warm welcome, and to Culture Ireland for their continued support in presenting Irish artists at Supermarket Art Fair.Image: detail from Powerful People Promises (2022) by Laura Fitzgerald, courtesy of the artist.