Elinor O’Donovan announced as Jane Anne Rothwell Award recipient for 2024

Cork Midsummer Festival is delighted to announce that the recipient of the Jane Anne Rothwell Award for 2024 is Elinor O’Donovan.

A visual artist based in Cork City, Elinor’s multidisciplinary practice spans film, sculpture, drawing, digital collage, and installations, exploring the ways that stories inform worldviews and the blurred line between fact and fiction. She received her BA in Intermedia Art from Edinburgh College of Art in 2019, and since then received a number of accolades in Ireland including a recent commission from the National Sculpture Factory and Cork City Council for a major public artwork in 2024, the inaugural Cork International Film Festival Commission Award in 2021, and three Visual Art bursaries from the Arts Council to support her practice. She has recently exhibited in solo and group shows in Ireland, the UK, Portugal, Italy and Mexico. Her most recent film ‘The Immeasurable Grief of the Prawn’ (2023) was selected for Cork International Film Festival, and won ‘Best Experimental Short Film’ at Dublin Independent Film Festival.

The Jane Anne Rothwell Award is a prize of €5,000 awarded annually to an emerging artist – either from Cork, or based in Cork – working in any discipline, who identifies as female. Jane Anne Rothwell was the inspirational Chair of Cork Midsummer Festival from 2013 – 2018. A leading figure in Cork’s legal and business community, Jane Anne was an incredible mentor to, and champion of, women in the arts.

Thanks to our selection panel for their time - and watch this space for further details on Elinor’s project for Cork Midsummer Festival 2024!