Painting the Irish conflict: The Belfast murals of Gerard Mo chara Kelly.
Item
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Title
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Painting the Irish conflict: The Belfast murals of Gerard Mo chara Kelly.
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Identifier
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AAI3213259
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identifier
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3213259
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Creator
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Saleeby-Mulligan, Deborah.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Katherine Manthorne
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Date
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2006
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History
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Abstract
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This dissertation investigates the life and work of the Northern Irish muralist Gerard Mo chara Kelly. It chronicles the artist's development from his earliest drawings created in the late 1960s while he attended primary school to his well-known large-scale public murals of the late 1990s. Kelly was born in West Belfast in 1957 into a family with close ties to the Irish Republican movement. Throughout his career Kelly's work has been informed by his staunch Irish Nationalist ideology. I will examine his work from a contextual perspective, and will consider its relationship to the sociopolitical events associated with the conflict in Northern Ireland.;As a way of introduction it will briefly discuss the history of mural painting in Northern Ireland. It will situate the political messages of Irish Republican murals in the discourse of cultural nationalism by exploring their function as objects of resistance against British Imperialism.;In 1972 Kelly joined the Irish Republican Army and physically fought to defend his community from the British security presence in Northern Ireland. In 1981 he was arrested and served over four years in Long Kesh Prison. During his incarceration, Kelly began to produce politically subversive artwork which asserted his Irish Nationalist ideology.;After his release from prison in 1985 Kelly turned away from physical force and began to fight the British establishment in Northern Ireland by creating provocative wall paintings throughout his native Belfast. These works depicted a wide range of imagery including memorial portraiture, Celtic mythology, and Irish history. They were used to educate his community and to express his Republican beliefs.;This study concentrates on Gerard Mo chara Kelly's artistic production between the years 1980-1998. I will place special emphasis on Kelly's view of the conflict in Northern Ireland as expressed through his public mural paintings.;Gerard Mo chara Kelly's role in creating a distinct Republican mural tradition in Northern Ireland has been greatly overlooked. I have undertaken this research in order to emphasize his significance in the history of Irish political art.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
