Dundalk artist does her bit for Gaza fundraiser

Irish Visual Artists for Gaza, a broad collective of Irish visual artists, designers and artisans, who together have raised more than €85,000 for life-saving aid for displaced Gazan families and orphans since April.

Among them is Louth artist Orla Barry who has donated her piece Foxwood to the cause.

Orla is an artist based in Bridge Street Studios, Dundalk. She is inspired by animals, nature, sacred art, mysticism, surrealism, fairy tales, patterns and a search for perfect colour combinations.

Her collection of work includes original paintings, Giclée art prints, brooches and greeting cards. Orla graduated with an honours degree in Fine Art from Dublin Institute of Technology in 2007.

Irish Visual Artists for Gaza is the brainchild of Dee Conneely, Leigh Brady and Aoife Neasy, it started life after a conversation between Leigh and Dee about the devastating events unfolding on a daily basis in Palestine.

Leigh is an international human rights worker who had lived in Palestine for over five years and was being contacted by families on the ground in Gaza, who had lost everything. She wanted to organise a fundraiser, but didn’t know where to start.

An art teacher from Co Galway, Dee had some connections in the art world and decided to organise prize draws of art by Irish visual artists.

“I have always believed in the power of art to inspire and change people’s hearts and minds,” she said. “I knew some Irish artists from my days at the Limerick School of Art and my gut feeling was that they would want to support our initiative.”

The response was phenomenal – over 70 Irish visual artists donated stunning pieces of art, craft and design for the initial art prize draw, which took place in May.

“We were blown away by the response to our call-out for art donations, both in terms of the talent of the artists that got on board, their generosity, and the range of beautiful pieces donated. There was everything from fashion design, printmaking, ceramics, fine art, jewellery, textiles, and craftwork,” recalled Dee.

The trio have launched a pre-Christmas bonanza featuring work by over 100 Irish Artists including Lillian Ecock, Mark Rasher Kavanagh, Hazel Coonagh, Helen cody, Janice Byrne Goldsmith, Emer Reynolds, Gabhann Dunne, Claire Garvey Designs, Feri, Sinead O’Moore, Helen Steele, PEELO, Mary Nagle, Kady Berry, Emerald and Wax, Noble Daughters, Orla Walsh, Fauna, Eoin O’Connor PLUS many, many more.

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Initially, the trio had not planned on doing more art prize draws as fundraisers, but when the art donations kept flowing and the situation on the ground in Gaza just got worse and worse, Dee, Leigh and Aoife were adamant they would keep trying to raise as much money as possible to cover basic needs such as clean drinking water, food parcels and tents for groups of displaced families in Gaza.

What followed has been weekly art and design draws in aid of specific families, who are highlighted on the Instagram page and stories for a week. This is a joint initiative between Irish Visual Artists for Gaza and Gaza go Bragh, an Irish-Palestinian collective providing direct humanitarian support to displaced families in Gaza and has helped to raise almost €10,000 in donations for individual families.

You can help support Gaza’s most vulnerable families by purchasing tickets for the Christmas Bonanza draw. Tickets can be bought by searching IVAFG Christmas Bonanza onwww.tickettailor.com.