'I absolutely love it' award winning artist Marie Brett's year long Laois project
Award winning artist Marie Brett has a special connection with Laois through her work. She is currently creating three multi-media installations for the county and is busy getting to know the people of Rathdowney, Errill, and Stradbally.
Marie is on a 12 month commission in Laois, to create three multi-media installations. She spoke to Laois Life magazine about her work, and her impressions of the county.
She makes installations that surround viewers and fill the senses. Her work is in permanent collections worldwide and in the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and the Arts Council.
In Laois she was commissioned by Laois County Council under the Percent for Art scheme. She is staying as an Artist in Residence with a studio in the Stradbally Arthouse, and working in Rathdowney and Errill on her project Our Side of The Mountain.
“I am inviting people to share their knowledge, history and legends, and I will frame that in an almanac. It is open to all the community; people who have lived there for generations and people who are new.
“The artwork I make is an opportunity to stop and reflect and give voice to uncertainties. To walk through it, listen, watch and smell. A lot of people say it is a way of thinking through difficulties.”
She focuses on unusual spaces that have a rich history.
Her first installation took place by candlelight in Donaghmore Famine Workhouse Museum on the 2025 Winter Solstice. Called The Field of Dreams, it included performances from storyteller Michael Creagh, Sean Nós singer Ciara Julia Ryan, and the Ukrainian families who escaped the war to find refuge in Rathdowney.
“I plucked up courage and went door to door and asked the families if they’d like to contribute and the response was amazing, really positive.”
“It looks back to difficult times, honouring them, and to the future and the potential and hope for better times.
“The Winter Solstice felt like an appropriate time to be contemplative. The workhouse is a really evocative site, it really called out to me.
“The next piece will be for May Day, looking into the year brightening and people’s spirits lifting. I think I’ve got a location but it's under wraps. It will be a beautiful evocative space with tremendous history in Rathdowney, using outhouses as well, so people can promenade from one to another, in a series of encounters.”
Marie is recording the installations in video, photography and print.
“The installations are very ethereal, it’s lovely the memory stays in someone’s mind but it’s lovely to have something more tangible as well. I will make it available on my website, with a little book to go into the libraries. It’s also a way to thank everybody for their input,” Marie said.
She praises the contributors to the first event.
“Michael Creagh is utterly amazing, and it was really inspiring to work with Trevor Stanley. He understood how to honour the space as a custodian, and to embed the communities who are still going through such hardship, in a positive, reflective way.
“We played handcranked gramophone records, setting a nostalgic soundtrack, overlaid with Ciara Julia Ryan singing Sean Nós, she blew the house away, and Mick’s poems. It was very beautiful what they created.”
She is enjoying getting to know people and places in Rathdowney, Errill, and Stradbally.
“I absolutely love it. People have been really generous. I meet people and go out and see sites with them, hearing tales, and it all goes into the mix.”
“Architecturally, Stradbally is amazing. The potential to create, to collaborate with owners of buildings that people can be immersed in, it’s really exciting.It’s really fertile, inspiring ground. The arthouse is a steady rock, with good meeting spaces, workshop spaces and the library.”
Marie has long had an association with Laois. She is a co-director of the Greencrafts area in Electric Picnic, which shares traditional eco and craft skills with the festival public.
She first met Laois Arts Officer Muireann ní Chonaill when they put together a team of artists to install new works at Electric Picnic.
Marie went on to become a mentor for local Laois artists through the Laois Arts Office.
“Muireann and her team then invited me to make this submission. So this is exciting, it’s my first sizable project in the county. I have an affinity with the county in a different way now.”
Her parents are from Mallow and Carrick-on-Suir. They emigrated to the UK for work so she grew up in London and attended art college in Goldsmiths, which she describes as “conceptually based as well as teaching craftsmanship”.
Now living in Carrick-on-Suir, over the years Marie has veered more towards working with people, telling their stories. She trained to be a teacher and in community development to hone those skills.
“I’ve been very fortuitous in getting support to make work that is big and long term and ambitious. I’m grateful for that and humbled, it’s what you hope for,” she said.
While she feels lucky in her success, she sees a need for more support for artists starting out in Ireland.
“There is hidden labour in being an artist. A modern day artist needs to hold like six hats, in terms of being a producer, an administrator, a PR expert as well as creating work and applying for funding, to write and talk and make. There could be more support for that. A lot of artists do 90 hour weeks unpaid.
“It’s often a vocation and people are emblazoned to create work but that can come at a hidden cost. In Dublin artists have a lot more opportunities in terms of artist studios. That‘s a huge shortfall in the country. Some local authorities are doing trojan work. Laois from my experience is amazing.”