Anna Barden: Exhibition pays tribute to Cork artist who died in 2024
Anna Barden at the Lavit Gallery in 2023.
“Deeply personal, sincere, and cerebral” is how the director of the Lavit Gallery in Cork, Brian MacDomhnaill, describes the work of the late artist Anna Barden who died unexpectedly on December 31, 2024.
Barden’s work will be exhibited at the Lavit Gallery, as a tribute to her artistic output, organised by family, friends and colleagues. Her art practice encompassed drawing, painting, sewing, ceramics and short text pieces.
Born in 1971 in Dublin, Barden moved to Cork as a young child and was brought up in Sunday’s Well. Her late father, Professor Emeritus Garret Barden, lectured in philosophy at UCC. Her mother, Angela, who taught computer science at St John’s College, died in 2012. Her brother Erik died in 2024.
Barden attended primary school at St Luke’s and went to Scoil Mhuire secondary school. She studied arts at UCC, spoke a couple of European languages, played chess and won an All Ireland medal for table tennis when she was in her teens. Her only child, Paul, works as a pharmaceutical technician.
Barden was well read and Paul described the stairs in their small inner city home as being stacked on both sides with books. A member of Backwater Artists’ Network, Barden exhibited in several Backwater Artists’ Group member exhibitions.
In 2024, she was awarded the Backwater Artists’ Network Residency and had a studio onsite for six months. She used the studio well, creating a large body of work, some of which was due to be exhibited in the Backwater’s Long Space in February 2025.
Cork-based writer, Madeleine D’Arcy, was a friend of Barden. She recalls visits to her home by Barden and her son. Paul, who was a few years older than D’Arcy’s son, Cass, almost acted like his older brother, giving him his Lego when he grew out of it.
“Anna was a great mother,” says D’Arcy. “I think it was quite a struggle for her at times as it would be for any single mother. I remember going to an exhibition of Anna’s work in the (former Cork city gallery) Vanguard.
"Myself and Andrew (D’Arcy’s husband) fell in love with one of her paintings so we bought it. It was one of her horse paintings, quite abstract but definitely a horse. She was dedicated to her art which isn’t easy when you’re trying to make a living.” (Barden worked in a number of arts organisations in Cork.)
Artist Katherine Boucher Beug, who was a friend and mentor of Barden, says her work developed through “deep personal and physical identity with certain themes or objects, her ability to draw and her writing. Her horses, isolated on the canvas, were charged with knowing, fierceness, movement and brazen colours.” Barden rode horses as a child.
Another artist, Gillian Cussen, who became a friend of Barden three or four years before her death, says Barden spoke her mind but did so with patience for her friends who were less nimble-minded than herself.
“Anna would regularly treat me to her great cooking at Fort Street where I would have sampled her cauliflower and blue cheese soup with her oatmeal bread topped with the best of cheeses from the English market, followed by a cup of good coffee,” recalls Cussen.
She says Barden was sensitive to the needs of others. “I saw that in her relationships with the homeless people who approached us at times for a cigarette or a loan of her lighter when we were having a coffee.”
She adds that Barden adored her son and was proud he was married to Lindsey. She also loved her cat. “Mooncat was her constant companion at home and a regular model for her drawings and paintings.”
However, Barden worked under “trying circumstances” as she didn’t have a studio at home and had little room to make art or store her paintings. But she spent a few hours each day painting and drawing before doing anything else.
MacDomhnaill first met Barden through the Backwater Artists’ Network which he helped set up. In his job at the Lavit, he stocked her work and included it in group shows.
“But I had not gotten to know her very well personally. I like her paintings in particular which I felt had a particular intensity or sincerity. I spent a couple of days looking through and photographing Anna’s work for the exhibition and it has been a very poignant experience. I feel I know her a little better.”
- The Anna Barden Memorial Exhibition is at the Lavit Gallery on Wandesford Quay, Cork, from February 5-14
