Ciara Rodgers is based in Cork City and works from her studio at Backwater Artists Group. She has a BA and MA from Crawford College of Art and Design and works in an expanded drawing practice which includes polaroid photography, installation and performance. Her work is often site specific, with the defunct and disappearing architecture of the urban landscape as her starting point.
Your practice is very expansive – incorporating charcoal drawings, polaroid photography, installation and performance – Have you always been worked this way?
During COVID, Rodgers couldn’t access her studio. “Out of frustration. I needed to somehow release some of this tension and I ended up getting a massive roll of paper and draping it into my sitting room like on the wall, all the way onto the floor and just playing around with it, and that kind of became the start of some of my performative work.”
“I suppose that’s something I’ve always been struggling to do is to tie all my different mediums together. Sometimes it’s successful, sometimes it’s not, you know, but you got to keep working at your practice, you know. That’s the thing. That’s why I think that’s why we call it a practice, you know, is that you’re constantly working on it, constantly trying to merge your ideas, make connections you know.”
Rodgers performance ‘Green Mouth’ responded to narratives around the late artist Brian O’Doherty. O’Doherty’s aunt had told him of seeing people with green mouths stained from eating grass during the Great Famine (1845-52).
Green Mouth, Live Performance, June 10th 2023, commissioned for SIRIUS by Miguel Amado. Image: Nic Flanagan
“Performing live is so much different than just recording yourself at home. I think you’re kind of responding to the audience.”
Rodgers uses a distinct palette of pastel pinks and blues. “They remind me of my childhood in the 80s as well, those kind of pastelly, I don’t know like clothing and ice cream. And there’s just all these kind of hazy memories of my childhood. You know Neapolitan ice cream.”
Rodgers public practice is urban and unpopulated. In her private practice she teaches and draws the figure. “I love clean lines. And also then, like I teach life drawing too, so I still you know it doesn’t come into like my public practice, but I’d still draw the figure. You know it’s good practice. It’s probably like the best thing to practice with is to draw the figure from life. So it is good practice, but it just doesn’t come into my practice. You know that I put out into the world.”
Rodgers frequently uses Polaraid photography on expired film. “Something I like about Polaroid film as well, especially the old cameras. Like you can’t really predict how it’s going to turn out, and there’s something really nice about that, because we take, you know, so many pictures with our phones that are crystal clear digital images.”
“I think play is really important as well. As an artist…otherwise it would be.. hard work..if you didn’t have a little bit of playtime..you need that for yourself, to need that joy, like you know from the work.”
On balancing her two teaching jobs with her artist practice:
“I teach in two universities, so I teach at night and I teach during the day. So this is my studio time. Now these months during the summer, I like to call it doing my real job. You know, working as an artist and I get to catch up on a lot, but I still try and come in at least once a week, once or twice a week, during term time as well.
So I will come in and I mightn’t be as productive, but I do find if I’m in my studio I will end up making something or doing something or getting, you know, achieving something, whereas if I didn’t come in at all, you know I’m not going to achieve anything.. I feel guilty for my art because you know it’s like it’s your baby, you know you gotta keep nourishing it. So, it’s important to come in and be present in your studio, whether you just move around a few things or, you know, write an application. It’s just important to be in the space, I think.
I’m more productive when I’m working..I think I’m more productive and maybe you’ve got more energy.”
She received the same advice from two different teachers:
“So my drawing lecturer she always talked about select and edit when it comes to drawing..you don’t have to draw everything in that still life, you can make that what you want it to be, and that’s selecting and editing.
I love leaving blank spaces, in my drawings. So that became really important for me selecting and editing what I draw, or isolating things if I need to.
One of my lecturers in the master’s as well, when it came to my Polaroids selecting and editing and just isolating things, putting things together that may not belong together, moving things around. So I spend a lot of time with the Polaroids, playing around with them and seeing what would work with what or what juxtaposes with what. So I think, in two different mediums, I think select and edit is just really important and it’s always in my head as well Select and
edit, select and edit, it’s just those words.”
Rodgers advice for artists:
“Just be patient. It takes time, I think. Just keep at it, Keep doing what you do. It takes tenacity and it takes a lot of patience and it’s a slow burner.
It’s not, you know, one of those careers where you’re just going to go straight into a job and everything’s going to be great. It takes a lot of patience and it just takes a lot of hard work and just keep going.”
Ciara Rodgers, Folly | Façade, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Lombard Street, Waterford. 8th June – 13th July 2024. Curated by Aideen Quirke. Image: Courtesy of the artist
On rejection:
“you’re going to get a lot of rejection. But you know, just brush it off, have a five minute funeral for your rejection and just move on and keep going, because I think it’s just the nature of it.”
On Instagram:
“I know Instagram is a great tool, but I think sometimes using social media can feed into that insecurity as well, when you’re seeing what other people are doing, you know, and you’re kind of like, oh, you know, I’m not doing as well as this person or that person..”
“I take breaks from Instagram regularly just because of that. You know, I just have a day where I’m like I’m not going to look. I’m not going to look today, just because I’m not feeling 100% about my work today.”
On the importance of believing in your work:
“You’ve got to just keep going on your own path, and just kind of have faith in your work. Your work is yours as well. No one can take that from you.. Have faith in what you’re doing yourself rather than looking at others or comparing yourself. Comparison is like the enemy of creativity.”
GOMA, Waterford. Curated by Aideen Quirke Ciara Rodgers, Folly | Façade, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Lombard Street, Waterford. 8th June – 13th July 2024. Curated by Aideen Quirke. Image: Kate Bowe O’ BrienListen to the full interview on The Warrior Artist Podcast.
Ciara Rodgers @ciaraarodgers www.ciararodgers.com