Donna Coogan

Donna Coogan, originally from Dublin, now living in Cork She studied glass at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, before graduating in 1994. She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally. Coogan’s practice is interdisciplinary, involving glass, poetry, mixed media and textiles. Textiles was her primary area of interest but she equally found the potential of glass fascinating, having grown up gazing at stained glass windows in her local church, where the use of text and quotations were very successfully employed, engaging with the ever changing light outside.

Her interest in words grew during a period of convalescence, when writing poetry was more manageable as a form of expression, as opposed to the physical energy needed to work in a studio. Coogan has been writing poetry for a number of years now. In 2012 Coogan’s interest in textiles was nurtured through attending a fine art textile course, in CIT Crawford College of Art & Design. This was like coming full circle. She now had an opportunity to explore a medium that was close to her heart.

She continued to write poetry, but now used it as an integral part of her textile work.

Now Coogan’s practice involves poetry with text, softened, layered, shielded, revealed or supported through transparent fabrics or kiln worked glass or imagery on canvas. Her process involves working through research, reading and writing and everyday life interactions. Her subject matter is about events and experiences pertaining to her own life, with a special interest in health and ageing issues.

She is now 64 years old, and she states that ‘there is a certain comfortable, peaceful, invisibility’ in her stage of life. Within her work she ‘writes her experiences’ into carefully made, emotionally charged, pieces.