FIONNUALA COLLINS : WORDS FOR PICTURES

The old man on the vintage bicycle nearly cycled into
the back of a parked car, unsure whether to bless
himself in fear or fall to his knees in shame at the
startling vision he saw on the gable end of a house in
the middle of Waterville, Co. Kerry in the summer of
2000. The beautiful nude lady was fourteen feet high
with long blonde hair streaming down, but not covering,
her naked breasts. As she stepped out of the huge
yawning shell into the lapping waves, she strode into
the dawn of time, carrying nothing but a pint of
Guinness which she held aloft like a deadly beacon.

This was not exactly "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli.
The stunning mural that stopped traffic, gave old and
young men palpitations, drew condemnations and
protestations of shock from townspeople and from some
visitors alike soon became a cause celebre in
Waterville that summer. Before long some local wag had
christened it "The Guinness de Milo!" In reality this
provocative, seductive and stunningly executed mural on
a gable end was "The Birth of Fionnuala Collins." It was
a daring declaration by a young artist, a call to sit up
and pay attention, a challenge to perceived notions of
art in public places. This clarion call from a gable end
would echo in public and private places, announcing the
arrival of a truly original and daring talent on the
Irish art scene.

In the very short time since that public display of a
prodigious new talent and startlingly original artist,
Fionnuala Collins has gone on to surprise and delight us
with the intensity and scope of her vision. Whether
painting the weather-beaten faces of Moore Street
traders at their stalls or the intensely proud
expressions of young horse owners and handlers in
Dublin's Smithfield Horse Fair, she captures human life
in all its moods and motions. Her centenary tribute
exhibition on the Abbey Theatre in 2004 celebrated a
whole range of great actors of the National Theatre in
all their glory - Donal Mc Cann caught in half wistful,
half mischievous reverie and Tom Hickey and Niall
Toibin, as Paddy Maguire and The Bull Mc Cabe, squaring
up to each other menacingly in Moscow's Red Square in
two of their most memorable roles with the company on
tour. Her portraits are moments fixed in time yet
forever conquering clocks and calendars.

In her oils on canvas and wood Fionnuala Collins ranges
from the broad colours and sweeping shades of a Cill
Rialaigh landscape to the fiery "duende" of a Spanish
flamenco dancer caught in mid-ecstasy. Her portraits of
old men in Tig Rosie's pub with lived in and time
smoothed faces are illuminated from within. Her cows in
a field have attitude and her ballet dancers, after
Renoir and Degas, pause coyly to adjust their shoes and
tutus on the way into the Ballroom of Romance in anytown
Ireland.

Anything could be happening in a Collins painting -
indeed it probably is. What is exciting is the discovery
of a young artist who teaches us new ways of looking,
who startles us into asking questions about the way we
perceive the world and who invites us to share her
delight in the wondrous diversity of things being
different and what they are.

Seamus Hosey

RTE Radio Producer