Cork teacher’s pop art to go on display in city

Having always dabbled in art, the covid pandemic was the catalyst for Cork teacher Edel Hanrahan-Ryder to take their passion for it seriously.

Now, the mother-of-three, who uses ‘they’ ‘them’ and ‘their’ personal pronouns, is having their first solo portrait exhibition at the Hideout Cafe & Art Gallery on Wellington Road from January 9 to February 28.

Edel’s exhibition, entitled Me, Myself & BTS, inspired by South Korean boy band BTS, also known as Bangtan Boys, comprises 30 pairs of portraits in ink, watercolour and graphite. Each pair consists of a self-portrait of Edel and a portrait of a member of BTS, linked together through song lyrics from the band’s music.

The hugely successful band addresses mental health issues as well as coming-of-age, loss and self-love through its lyrics and it has an alternate universe storyline.

Me, Myself & BTS will take the viewer on a journey through the artist’s exploration of self-acceptance and renewal, while aging.

As a 47-year-old mother of children that are on the autism spectrum, Edel started to wonder where they could find space for their own identity. Painting helped to fulfil that need.

The exhibition, to be opened by artist Vivienne Roche, is Edel’s attempt to answer whether they could find a way to love themselves as much as they love those around them.

Edel studied maths and computer science at university and worked in IT. They spent six years in Japan working for a start-up in the early days of mobile app development. When the company went bust, Edel and two other colleagues started their own company working for other expats that wanted tailor-made software and web application development.

Having met their husband online (Cork writer, Gareth Hanrahan), he came out to Japan to visit Edel.

“I was going to come back to Cork for a holiday. In the end, I came back and stayed, selling my share in the company. I retrained as a teacher and got a job teaching maths and computer science at Christ King,” said Edel.

While Edel loves teaching, they say it occupies ‘a very doing mode’. To satisfy their need for creativity, they took some time out to study life drawing at the Crawford and a graphic design course at MTU. But with Gareth also involved in the arts, “one of us had to have a sensible job”.

Edel took a year out from teaching after the birth of their daughter. It coincided with the pandemic. “I think we all struggled to find something to do. I couldn’t do a lot physically at the time as I had a huge kidney stone blocking one of my kidneys. Surgery kept being pushed off.

“I just started to paint and I was watching Chinese and Korean dramas. A friend sent me a play-list of music and one song by BTS stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t understand the words but became obsessed with it. I started looking into the band.

“I had been painting trees and stuff like that. Then I started to paint the portraits of the band members while listening to their music.”

Has Edel learned to love herself, self-love being one of BTS’s themes? “I’m learning.”

Edel has been using non-binary pronouns since before the pandemic.

“It’s something that fits me. I never felt like I was a boy or anything but I never really felt comfortable whenever anybody referred to doing ‘girly’ things. Using non-binary pronouns is just my preference.”

While Edel describes their self as a portrait artist, they are working on a new project, pairing buildings with Cork people.

“I’ve just finished a piece on Blackrock Castle and I want to do a portrait of Cillian Murphy as he’s associated with the Blackrock area.”

Portrait painting is a special talent but Edel doesn’t think that portraits have to be realistic to be really good likenesses of people. “A portrait has to feel like the person.”

In 2024, Edel started job-sharing the teaching role. “That’s not really because of the art. But with three children on the autism spectrum, they have a lot of appointments to be taken to, particularly my daughter Nimue (5).

“She has a lot of challenges, including behaviourally, stemming from not being able to communicate. She doesn’t really speak but she might spell out words.

“She attends the ASD unit at Bunscoil Chríost Rí. She’s in a class of six so she gets really good attention and fantastic occupational therapy.”

Edel and Gareth’s 11-year old twin boys, Tristan and Elyan, were late speakers “but they speak fine now. They have their own struggles such as sensory overwhelm so they have a lot of appointments as well.”

The twins are in fifth class in the same school as their sister. (The children are called after Arthurian legend names).

With their busy life, Edel feels “really grateful for having fallen into art and working on BTS portraits,” adding: “Their music and message are really uplifting and positive.

“The band has a series called ‘mapping the soul’ which goes into Jungian philosophy, ego and shadow. That made me read a lot.

“BTS has a young fan base as well as an older one. One of them, Suga, does solo music which delves into personal areas such as struggles with mental health and depression.

“The band also does bright, sunny fluffy pop stuff too, which is fun and enjoyable. But it’s their deeper message that drew me in.”