Artist: Rachel Macmanus of the Negative Space Art Collective
Part of a series of portraits of County Clare based interesting and inspiring community shapers. Through doing local radio interviews and getting the project advertised through articles in the local paper The Clare Champion, people came forward themselves to participate, or families nominated a late family member to be painted.
This is an important project as it bridges fine art portraiture with urban street art. It’s the artists’ experience that in some cases when people get older, they can, for various reasons, disappear from society, spending more times indoors and possibly being in less of a position to be out and about in the community.
She wanted to place these important community shapers front and centre in the public eye, so they can be seen and appreciated by the current and, hopefully, a new generation of people who inhabit and who visit Ennis, Co Clare.
The electrical boxes are on street corners, down laneways, on footpaths, and generally situated in incongruous sites around Ennis town. All are accessible by foot. The feedback has been that people come across them unexpectedly and enjoy encountering them as they go about their business.
Bernie Brann, no 7 in the portrait series of community figures from Co Clare. Her box is located on Clonroad Beg, around the corner from O Connell Street, Ennis.