Visual Art: New Mural by Yvonne Condon on Cork’s Cornmarket Street

View the new mural by visual artist Yvonne Condon below, celebrating the mercantile traditions of Cork’s Cornmarket Street.

Dynamic artist Yvonne Condon has created a stunning vibrant large-scale outdoor painting for Cork’s Cornmarket Street, celebrating the long mercantile traditions of the street, its past and present users. The piece was created mid-April 2024, and will be in place indefinitely for all to enjoy. The location for Yvonne Condon’s new work is across from Peg Twomey’s grocery store, just before Cornmarket Street turns into Kyle Street.

This work, over 1.5 metres high and 5 metres long,  is the largest-scale project to date by Yvonne, from Ballinacurra, East Cork, who has gained widespread recognition over recent years for her bold and uncompromising images. She captures the essence of an image, working from observation with great speed and intensity.  Her public outdoor work includes most recently her ‘Yellow Nude’ on the billboard outside Dublin’s Project Arts Centre (March 2024) as part of Disrupt Disability Arts Festival, and in Cork an installation on a meter box on Cork city’s Princes Street (2021). 

Painting is Yvonne’s window to the world, and she is inspired by everything around her in everyday life. Yvonne does not speak, and has limited hearing, and is only able to see with one of her eyes. Her art is influenced by her life, by people who surround her, by the things she sees. 

Over the years Yvonne has created an enormous body of work. Her paintings have been exhibited in venues including the Cork’s People’s Museum, Project Arts Centre Dublin; RHA Dublin, and Atypical Gallery Belfast, and can be found hanging on the walls of many homes in private collections. This installation sees Yvonne build on her experience working with larger scales in international workshops in Spain and England, and situates her work firmly within the wider cultural context of the city, enhancing public spaces and establishing her position among Cork’s most recognised artists.  

Yvonne participates in Crawford Supported Studio and was a long-term member of Glasheen Artists Studio Programme (GASP) both of which support artists with disabilities. Yvonne brings her distinctive work to the streets of Cork city in partnership with Crawford Art Gallery and with the support of Cork City Council.

The mural is supported by the Arts Council’s Arts and Disability Connect scheme, funded by Arts Council Ireland and managed by Arts & Disability Ireland. Yvonne was the first artist with an intellectual disability to receive a New Work Award through the scheme.  For more information on this funding scheme, please visit adiarts.ie/connect.