Hazel Gardner - Artist

Biography

Born in Wicklow, Ireland, Hazel Gardner studied at Limerick School of art and Design, Limerick. She holds a bachelors in fine art painting. Storytelling and myth-weaving are at the heart of Hazel Gardner’s work. However, like an unbound book, there is no singular, concrete story to be found here. Figures crowd together, colliding and merging in a cacophony of activity—at once existing on multiple planes, yet still in relationship with one another. Rather than offering fixed meanings, Gardner’s painted worlds are an open invitation for viewers to bring their own lives, interpretations, and imaginations into the story. This current approach of free, uninhibited expression emerged during a period of hospitalisation, when image-making became her lifeline and sole link to selfhood. Instead of holding onto preconceived ideas of a finished piece, Gardner now revels in the process of creation itself, allowing her imagination to intuitively guide the imagery—and vice versa—as each work unfolds.

The seed of each motif is spontaneous, sparked by the artist’s dreams, daily life, and personal history. Gardner blends these experiences with the symbolic language of ancient myth, drawing on the narrative imagery of Athenian red-figure vases and the archetypal forms of Palaeolithic Venus figurines. These influences converge in a visual language that is both deeply personal and resonant with universal human experience. Despite her frequent engagement with difficult personal content, Gardner is more invested in possibility, flexibility and the reimagining of the story—in the ‘becoming’ of it all.