Remembering the forgotten

A new exhibition is a nod to women whose significant achievements have largely been overlooked.

Oonagh Hurley’s solo exhibition ‘Women Unremembered’ opens today, Thursday, at Cork County Library.

It explores women from the heroic to the spectacular who have been hidden in the writing and rewriting of history. While Oonagh’s previous works investigated memory, her current work addresses how things are forgotten.

She uses photographic archives and written accounts to create contemporary portraits, with the aim that they will be viewed with the curiosity of fresh eyes and prove inspirational to both men and women.

She said: “It is often the most mundane, incidental moments that can stir the most visceral emotions in us. We conceal, expose, select, and colour memories, intertwining reality and fiction, creating open-ended stories. We add and remove our own layers to memory as though it were as malleable and as fluid as the paint on the canvas. My paintings are made in much the same way.”

Mayor of Cork Cllr Gillian Coughlan said: “In this decade of centenaries we have been continually invited to re-examine and reinterpret our ideas of the past. Oonagh’s exhibition, focusing on historical women and bringing their stories to light is very welcome to the Library HQ Gallery, where it very appropriately invites us all to learn from the past and relearn how to interpret it.”

It runs until 13 May.