Leanne Mc Donagh changing the art of Traveller culture
Leanne McDonagh poses with practised ease for photographs outside the Backwater Studios on Wandesford Quay in Cork. Flicking her glossy hair over one shoulder, she laughs and jokes with the photographer.
The past weeks have been a whirlwind for her since her January appearance on RTÉ’s Norah’s Traveller Academy set her on the path she’s always dreamed of; a successful career as an artist. McDonagh, with her degree in Fine Art from Crawford College of Art and Design, is among just 1% of the Traveller community to have graduated from third level education in Ireland.
With TV shows like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding preying on her mind, it took McDonagh some persuading before she agreed to take part in the RTÉ programme. “I was worried that I’d regret how I was portrayed,” she says. “It’s always been the same negative stereotype”.
It hasn’t always been a smooth road for McDonagh. On Norah’s Traveller Academy, her eyes flashed with anger as she described the feeling of constantly being watched on shopping trips to Cork with her family: “I’ve been in situations where people make me so angry that I almost do want to become ‘that knacker’ that people expect.”
We meet up in the aftermath of shootings at a Traveller wedding outside St Mary’s Church in Co Fermanagh last Wednesday, McDonagh is keen to point out that she doesn’t consider herself a spokesperson for the Traveller community; she has no comment on the incident, and why should she?
She’s wary of being pigeonholed, being known as a Traveller artist rather than as an artist in her own right. “I don’t want to become someone that solely represents my community,” she says. “I have created artwork in the past that’s purely about myself, or concepts that relate to more universal themes.”
Married for just over a year, Leanee lives in a caravan behind her in-law’s house at Ballynoe near Mallow, Co Cork. By day, she tutors art in primary schools. It’s hard to imagine this young woman battling with self-confidence, but when it came to her art, she struggled. “When I was in college I didn’t want to talk about my work, because it was about my heritage and I wasn’t ready to share that,” she says. “But maybe because it was art college, it was somewhere you could be different and that was celebrated.”
Gaining acceptance in the visual arts community as a Traveller is one thing, but how about acceptance amongst the Traveller community as an artist? Travellers have a rich cultural heritage in skilled crafts, but are they accepting of McDonagh’s more abstract work?
“My parents have come to my exhibitions and seen some of my abstract work and said, ‘Leanne, what the hell are you at?’,” she says.
McDonagh’s TV appearance may have gone some way towards her work being taken more seriously in the Traveller community: “There’s a lot more travellers gaining interest in what I’m doing, asking me what things mean or maybe saying that they can see where I’m going with my work. They are getting it.”
Filming Norah’s Traveller Academy, and the associated media interest, has been a formative experience. Acutely aware of how she’s being received, she tackles being interviewed with determination and thoroughness, considering each question gravely, revising answers and sometimes asking the purpose of the question.
Having seen the show, she has no regrets. “In 20 years when I look back, it’ll probably still be one of the best things I’ve ever done,” she says. “I learned so much in such a short space of time, and I met so many amazing people.”
Her Dublin show, Reminiscence, which featured on the programme, will open in the Cork Vision Centre in April. It’ll give her family and friends a chance to see the work and keep her profile raised as she works on her next exhibition. Reminiscence was created in just six weeks, in accordance with RTÉ’s shooting schedule, and McDonagh really felt the pressure. This time, she’s determined to give herself space to allow for her creative process.
Increasingly busy with her art tutoring work, time is still an issue: “Every night when I get home, I have about five school projects to work on and when that’s over, I still have my own stuff to do. I feel like I’m just on a loop and I keep going and going like a hamster on a wheel. But my own work has started.”
Inspired by her renewed forays into painting, she has a clear ambition for her next exhibition, which she says will focus on portraiture: “I want to really create a portrait that shows people from outside the travelling community that this is a person, that if you look long enough at this piece, you’ll see yourself.”
