Artist’s Statement 2023

My work explores the body as a place of resistance, and the interstice between the domestic and the public sphere.

I try to use film to explore situations that go beyond the surface to tap into the energy of bodies that clash with their surroundings.

I use absurdity as a strategy in performance and film structure to create affective meaning.

I am interested in the détournement and reframing of histories and works of literature as vehicles for exploring questions of feminism.

The Sinthome drawings Gouache, pencil and collage on arches paper, 30 x 40 cm each 2021-2023

A selection from a series of ongoing drawings that began with researching set design and performance ideas for my film “Fugue”, drawing on research into art historical and literary representation of women in relation to psychoanalysis and hysteria. Part of a new body of work supported by a Bursary award from the Arts Council of Ireland

                       

Fugue - the inheritance

Digital 16mm film/c.12min/Úna Quigley/2023 (released 2024)

“Fugue - the inheritance” imagines a convening of historical and fictional "hysterics". It uses absurdity, music and choreography to weave together ideas from feminism, psychoanalysis and ecocriticism, and draws on on a range of literature from Sophocles to Sylvia Plath.

Performers: (L-R) Fionnuala Doyle-Wade, Fearghus Ó Conchúir and Roberta Cegniskaite

Sound/Music: Loz Fitzgibbon

Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland