Artist's advice for our times? 'Do something creative every day' 

Debbie Chapman, artist-in-residence at Cork's Montenotte Hotel, tells us how the pandemic made her reframe her thinking

Artist Debbie Chapman and Montenotte Hotel manager Brian Bowler launch a collection of paintings by the artist which are now on show at The Montenotte Hotel Cork. Pictures: Gerard McCarthy 

So many people have suffered over the past year — not least creatives. But while there may have been an old idea that artists were actually supposed to suffer for their art, one woman has used the pandemic to turn this idea on its head, using these times instead to focus on both her life and her work in a new way.

Debbie Chapman, who is artist-in-residence at The Montenotte Hotel, Cork, had long been inspired by the words of French author Marcel Proust about developing new perspectives: “My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.”