Dublin People Article

Brave Dun Laoghaire artist opens in Monaco
Sunday, 01 March 2009
THIS St Patrick’s Day will be extra special for a wheelchair bound Dun Laoghaire artist.
Mary Collins will be celebrating the national day at the opening of an exhibition of her watercolours in Monaco at the principality’s Princess Grace Irish Library.
It’s the latest in a series of events and exhibitions organised by the library to celebrate and promote exceptional accomplishments by Irish-linked artists in literature and the visual arts.
Mary has been painting since 1990 and has 11 exhibitions under her belt. Despite the considerable handicaps of cerebral palsy and chronic pain, she’s become a painter of note.
And that’s not all. She’s also a talented poet, and has an MA from Trinity College.
Mary says she took up painting as a way of accessing parts of the world that aren’t so accessible to anyone in a wheelchair.
“It is a wonderful and unexpected opportunity,” she said of the St Patrick’s Day exhibition. “Princess Grace of Monaco holds a special place in my heart and I am overjoyed that my watercolours will be seen in such a prestigious setting.”
Mary lives in Dun Laoghaire and established the online Blue Wave Art Gallery. She hopes her achievements to date will be an inspiration to other people with disabilities.
It was because of the paintings exhibited on the Blue Wave website, allied to her growing reputation, that that the Princess Grace Irish Library awarded Mary this exhibition, her first outside Ireland.
Anne Anderson, Irish Ambassador to Monaco and France, described Mary as “a truly inspiring Irishwoman who has never let her disability hinder her creativity and talent”.
Ms Anderson added that she was delighted that Mary’s work has been chosen to celebrate St Patrick’s Day 2009 in Monaco.