French adventures for Cork artist Suzy

Cork-born artist, Suzy O’Mullane,who is now based in France, sums up the difference between the Irish and the French as exemplified by the reaction to her recent performances in a paper dress.

Wearing a white off-the-shoulder number made out of cartridge paper held together with masking tape at the opening of photographer Harry Moore’s exhibition at the Quay Co-op’s new art gallery in Cork recently, Suzy invited the public to draw on her.

“I was kind of being provocative,” says Suzy. “I wanted people to participate rather than being a passive audience. 

The idea was to allow whatever happened.

“At the Cork performance, people did beautiful drawings on my shoulders and dress that I didn’t really want to wash off. They were polite, whereas the French are saucy and audacious a lot of the time.

“The French people delved into my face, drawing lines and squiggles on it. I found it very challenging. It’s not something I would want.

“I had handed out pens to random people and after about five minutes, they passed them onto others and all of a sudden, I had a swarm drawing on me. Some of them were men.

I felt that one man, who was drawing on my face, was almost being obnoxious.

Suzy was inspired by the artist and widow of John Lennon, Yoko Ono, who some time ago invited people to cut off the dress she was wearing.

“I find the more you expose yourself, the stronger your performance becomes. No one went at my face at the Quay Co-op. People were careful.”

But Suzy feels that art is taken more seriously in France than in this country.

“The French love the arts. They show up for cultural events. I know there’s a grant system there which I haven’t tapped into but a lot of artists there find it really good.

“For example, I know one artist in Paris who has a massive apartment with studio space for low rent. It was custom-built for an artist. I think artists fare better in France.”

Feeling depressed and isolated after the pandemic, Suzy says the only person she was seeing in Cork was her son.

It was really hard going. I felt irrelevant. A lot of the galleries were closing down. I felt my work, while always good, was a bit samey. It was mostly figurative with a lot of symbolism as well. It’s very personal emotional work, all relationship-based.

Suzy’s late mother left her some money.

“I know she would have been absolutely thrilled that I used it for a Masters in drawing at the Paris College of Art.”

However, Suzy found the course “hard-going. I found it very tough being told what to do again, at my age. Initially, I found myself rebelling against it. But I could see that the instructors were trying to get me out of being stuck and to try new things, new concepts. They were trying to guide me away from art that was too illustrative. The course was very conceptual.”

Suzy now “loves” conceptual art.

“I understand it a lot better. You have to have gone to art college to understand it. It’s more of a metaphorical way of looking at something instead of an illustrative way.

“The masters was run by an extraordinary woman, Veronique Devolder. She’s a tough cookie but she gets results. She prises you open. Before she took me on, she had said she loved my work. But I found her tough and confrontational. I was being taken out of my comfort zone.

I disagreed quite a lot, but we came to some sort of compromise. I felt she respected me and I started to see where she was coming from.

Graduating as the best of her Masters’ degree class, Suzy received felicitations du jury. “I was really happy with that honour because the jurors are very well established artists.”

Suzy had always loved Paris.

“But I found that the parts everyone knows actually disappear when you live there. You live in a tiny shoe box of an apartment and pay exorbitant rent. I lived with my dog Lily (who died last year) in Paris. I was really glad of her because I was lonely.

“Outside of college, it took months to get to know people. I was really on my own apart from a few people I knew in Paris. I also found Paris very neurotic, with everybody flying around in the mornings on their trottinettes (electric scooters) in bike lanes. I found their attitudes a bit cheeky.

“You become a different person there. You grow an extra layer which is no harm for Irish people because we get walked on as a country. I found myself becoming a bit more assertive.”

Now living in the Perpignan area of southern France, Suzy was invited to do a series of exhibitions by a renowned artist in the area, Aline Fillip.

“She finds extraordinary venues and I’ve been asked to perform in them. I’m sort of building up a repertoire of performances. And it looks like I’m accepted to exhibit at the Maison des Arts in Bages. It’s a really good exhibition to get.”

Suzy says there are far more opportunities for artists in France than in Cork.

“I mean, how many galleries are in Cork? Since Art Trail folded in 2011, I don’t think there are many opportunities here. 

I see some really strong artists in Cork whose work never sees the light of day. I think it’s a disgrace. 

"The Crawford is wonderful but that’s closing for two years.”

For the foreseeable future, Suzy plans to remain in France and will come back to Cork as often as she can to see her grandchild.

“Sorcha is my pride and joy, aged one year and five months. She’s called Sorcha Roísín, after my daughter, Roísín. She has brought a lot of joy back into my family.”

It is 20 years since Roísín Davis died at the age of 24, from a heart attack. Suzy’s husband, musician Chris McCarthy, died five months later and in 2015, Suzy lost her brother, Tadhg, who died by suicide. She has had more tragedy than most. How did she cope?

“I got a lot of help. I’m very into spiritual healing and meditation. I’ve had an awful lot of counselling. I was really crushed for years. But I was making very strong art. My work was pouring out of my soul.

“So now, my little lady is a good reason to come to Cork. I come over regularly to mind her.”

Suzy is “on a roll in France. I don’t see curators running to artists’ studios here. In France, they do. The director and curator of Maison des Arts in Bages, Romain Jalabert, spent ages in my studio asking a lot of very deep questions. He is very astute and very well educated.

“The selection process wasn’t easy. I had to make a book – not a catalogue – with statements and images and ideas.”

While professionally satisfied in her adopted country, Suzy misses “the craic” in Ireland. “Irish people have a divil-may-care attitude and they’re kind. Obviously, French people are kind but in a different way.”

She is seeing a French man involved in the arts, Cyril Gaillot. Clearly her Gallic adventure has worked out well on all fronts.