Abroad

‘I got permission to paint a wall across from the Museum of the Revolution in Cuba, which had two Soviet tanks in front’

Corkwoman Fiona Murphy has travelled the world teaching and creating art

Fiona Murphy puts the finishing touches to a dragon her students created for Shrek the Musical

Fiona Murphy
Mon Aug 7 2023 - 06:01

My teacher asked me when I was a four year-old girl in Youghal, Co Cork, what I wanted to be when I grew up and my prompt response was: “I want to be an artist or an ice-cream seller.” They were my two main interests.

During the summer evenings, I had always waited with excitement for the ding a ling chime of the ice-cream van, hoping my father would buy me a cone. I dreamed of selling 99s but the pull of artistic creation led me elsewhere.

I loved to collect objects, reassemble and reconstruct them into works of art. I knew where I wanted to go. Chance was on my side, too. After studying at Limerick College of Art and Design, an opportunity appeared in a newspaper ad and I seized it. A family in Florence was looking for an English-speaking au pair to look after their son, Leonardo. So, in 1993, this budding artist arrived in the land of the best ice-cream in the world.

[ I often wondered if I’d have been happier if I didn’t pursue my dream ]

And there began my journey. I was to spend the next three years in the city of the Medici and of my favourite Renaissance artist, the genius Leonardo da Vinci. Tutoring young Leonardo was fun and was the start of a passion that was later to turn into career as an educator.

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During my time off, I painted and exhibited in Florence and fell in love with an Italian called Francesco, an agronomist and expert in tropical agriculture. Again, chance was to play its part in my life.

We moved to Cuba in 1996 to work for an NGO. Life was tough in Havana. The Soviet Union had vanished and so had the Russian subsidy for Fidel Castro’s revolutionary experiment. People were going hungry. Things were desperate.

I took to painting murals, to add colour to the drab walls of a once splendid city that was now so dilapidated. Spanish colonial buildings were crumbling and lacking paint.

Joined by a local artist, we began to paint murals in parks and on the walls of hospitals and schools, inviting local residents to join in.

I got permission to paint a wall across from the Museum of the Revolution, which had two Soviet tanks in front as monuments. Since I was painting over the revolutionary slogan “Venceremos” (We will overcome), the Cuban officials insisted the mural had to have a military motif. We painted an abstract mural with circular Celtic designs in tones of green and blue. I told the officials they were the wheels of tanks but were they? The mural stayed up for 10 years.

I later became the art teacher at the International School of Havana. I split up with my Italian boyfriend. A little while later, I met my husband, Anthony Boadle, who was the bureau chief for Reuters news agency. Our son, Luka, was born in 2003.

When Castro fell ill and almost died, I began to capture his frail body in a series of portraits I later exhibited in Havana.

After six years in Cuba, Anthony was posted back to Washington and we moved north. I taught art through Spanish at a bilingual school in DC.

We fell in love with Andalucía in Spain when we travelled there on our honeymoon so we bought a town house in a fairy-tale mountain village with a castle called Vélez-Blanco. That was 19 years ago and we still visit once a year to unwind.

We put it on Airbnb and guests are loving the house and the village, which was settled by the Moors, before the Castilians expelled the Arabs from Spain in 1492. The Moors had chosen a good spot for water in a dry country: the village has five different fountains of mountain water that residents say makes them live longer.

After four years in Washington (where we were present for Obama’s inauguration one cold winter morning), I felt like something was missing and was itching to travel back to Latin America so I encouraged my husband to go back into the field. He was offered a posting in Brasília and this is where we have been living for the past 11 years.

[ ‘The happiness I have discovered in Japan cannot usurp my grá for Ireland’ ]

I have worked as the head of the art department at the American School of Brasília and I am now looking for a new posting as an international educator. We aim to retire to our Andalucían village.

I am currently on a one-year sabbatical expanding our house in Andalucía to allow us to host more international travellers. Also being in Spain allows me to be closer to my family in Ireland.

I have been travelling for 30 years but arriving back at Dublin Airport always makes me emotional and proud to be from an island of such warm and friendly people.

  • Fiona Murphy is an artist from Youghal, Co Cork. She has lived in Italy, Cuba, United States and has lived in Brazil for the past 11 years where her son, who now studies business and international relations in Madrid, grew up.
  • If you live overseas and would like to share your experience with Irish Times Abroad, email abroad@irishtimes.com with a little information about you and what you do
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