Rita Duffy, an artist based on the Cavan/Fermanagh Border, opens a show in Cork.

As an artist, Rita believes in the power of art in helping tackle the seemingly insurmountable global challenges of climate change, inequity and migration.

The veteran Northern Irish artist, well known for her acerbic political commentary in works such as ‘The Raft Project’ (which replicated 19th Century painting, ‘The Raft of the Medusa’, to critique Brexit politics) focuses her keen gaze in this exhibition on migration and climate change in a soon-to-be-revealed series of exciting new works that form the backbone of her first solo exhibition in the Crawford Art Gallery, down in Cork city.

Closer to home, Fermanagh art lovers have admired her works when they have gone on show in the county, including at Hambly and Hambly in Enniskillen, where the striking works by the artist, currently working from her studio in nearby Ballyconnell, County Cavan, have left a lasting impression.

Now, Duffy’s new triptych of paintings, ‘Epiphany’, ‘Belfast to Byzantium’, and ‘Ornithopter’, grapple with a world of socio-economic divisions against the backdrop of climate change, migration and increasing attempts to use borders as a fortress to protect the affluent.

Referencing post-Trump US politics, the 2021 Kabul airlift, and the history of Northern Irish people as settlers in the US Bible Belt, the trilogy is a painful satire of global affairs, painted with a nod to Hieronymus Bosch, Brueghel and Goya.

Duffy holds a mirror up to the current state of world affairs, and yet she believes not all is bleak – art and creative thinking are our hope for the future, she says.

“I think art is the thing that is the most hopeful,” Duffy says. “There is a sense of cataclysm all around us, in our movies, our culture.

“It’s almost like we’re digging ourselves into the negative darkness – and that’s where art’s role becomes more and more important.”

An artist known for her Northern Irish roots and her pervasive interest in social justice, she says: “Now more than ever, local politics are important as they speak to the global. There is only one issue we need to be urgently addressing, and that’s climate change.

“There’s nothing else on the agenda. We’re coming into a post-Nationalist state, because it doesn’t matter what your nationality is or where you’re from.

“If you don’t have clean water to drink or a safe place to live, waving a flag is not going to make any difference to you.”

Mary McCarthy, Director of Crawford Art Gallery said: “Crawford Art Gallery continues to champion artists through these solo presentations as well as through group exhibitions.

“Duffy’s work is relevant, pertinent and visually arresting. We hope our visitors will be inspired and engaged by her rich visual imagery.”

‘Persistent Illusion’ by Rita Duffy is in the Gibson Galleries at the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork City until Sunday, October 8.