Bethlehem to Baltimore: West Cork artist sells work to raise funds for Palestine
Artist Pat Fraser in her studio near Baltimore, Co. Cork, finalising her work for her exhibition "A journey through Palestine" which will run from July 22nd to July 24th (10am-6pm) at Inish Beg Estate, Baltimore. Pics: Denis Minihane.
West Cork-based artist Pat Fraser has many vivid memories of her visit to the West Bank in Palestine in 2018. “I was travelling with a group of doctors, journalists and psychiatrists,” she says. “The trip was organised by the Irish government, and was kept to a very strict schedule.
“We were on a journey to Jerusalem one day, and the bus hadn’t gone fifty yards when we were stopped by an Israeli army patrol. All the Palestinian people were ordered off, so the soldiers could check their permits. We were told we could stay on the bus, but we got off to show our solidarity.”
She was struck by how young the soldiers were. “Many of them grew up in far-off places, like the UK and Australia. They were only kids. Yet here they were, armed with AK47s and pistols on their hips. It reminded me a lot of Northern Ireland in the Troubles.”
That first trip to the West Bank was ten days in duration, and Fraser returned for a similar period the following year to collect more material for her forthcoming exhibition at the Inish Beg Estate in Baltimore, West Cork. A Journey Through Palestine, a selection of watercolours and sketches inspired by her two trips to the West Bank, will be opened by the actor – and long-time West Cork resident - Jeremy Irons on the evening of Friday, July 21.
“Jeremy is filming in the UK at the moment,” she says. “But he’s coming over especially to speak at the opening. I’ve known him for years, ever since he commissioned a wooden boat from Hegarty’s Boatyard, and Liam Hegarty asked me to make a painting of the boat to present him with. Any time I’ve met him since, he’s told me how much he loves the painting.”
Fraser was born in Wales, to a Welsh father and an Irish mother, “a Minihane, who grew up in a thatched cottage overlooking Heir Island. She only died last month, in her nineties. She often remembered playing as a child in the grounds of Kilcoe Castle, which Jeremy has since restored.”
Fraser’s father worked as a signwriter, and most of her family were artistic. She painted in school, and went on to study at the Swansea College of Art, graduating in 1981 with a BA in Medical and Botanical Illustration. “Even before I finished college, I was getting commissions from major publishing houses,” she says. “I did work as an illustrator for Reader’s Digest and Harper & Collins, as well as private commissions for my watercolours.”
She moved to West Cork in 1986, settling initially in Baltimore, where she and her partner shared a small apartment. “But then the village became more and more developed, and we decided to move out to the countryside. We didn’t have a car, but we hitched out to look at a cottage on a 1.5-acre site on the way to Lough Hine. When we bought the property in 1991, it had no water or electricity, but we renovated it and we’ve lived there ever since.”
Fraser has continued to work as an illustrator for Irish and international publishing companies, as well as completing commissions for companies such as An Post and Irish Knitwear. She has also continued working on her own projects; A Journey Through Palestine will be the fourth solo exhibition of her paintings.
“There’ll be sixty pieces in the show,” she says. “Most are watercolours, along with some drawings in pen-and-ink. I usually spend two weeks on each of my paintings, and I’ve spent four years preparing for the show. My favourite piece in the exhibition is the portrait of a child I’ve used in all the publicity material. I call her my Mona Lisa. It’s the one painting I’ll keep for myself; all the other work is for sale, with all the profits going to Médicins Sans Frontiers and Medical Aid for Palestinians.”
Most of Fraser’s paintings are based on her photographs and the sketches she made on her trips. “I used to go down to the market in Bethlehem every morning, and I’ve done some paintings of the people I met there, like the elderly gentlemen who sold falafels at the roadside. But most of them are of people I met in the camps.
“Some of the camps are there so long that they’ve got little shops and theatres, and facilities for children. But one thing I noticed is that there are a lot of young men, pumped full of testosterone, and very frustrated with their situation. I witnessed one protest march against conditions in the camps, along the perimeter wall. It was mostly very peaceful, but one young boy threw a lump of concrete at the wall, and the Israeli soldiers patrolling along the top of it responded by firing teargas into the crowd. It was very oppressive.
“The shame of it all is that the people are so beautiful, and it’s such a magical place. You’d fully expect to meet Jesus himself coming round the corner.”
- Pat Fraser’s exhibition of paintings and drawings, a Journey Through Palestine, is open from 10am – 6pm, July 22-24, at the Octagon at Inish Beg Estate, Baltimore, West Cork. Further information: inishbeg.com
