Dee Mulrooney is a multi-disciplinary Irish artist. Inhabiting a female body and all that it entails is the main preoccupation of her work. Exile, class, displacement, social history, longing and belonging are some of the themes explored by Dee, through various media, including painting, drawing, film, storytelling, and performance. Her art is fiercely authentic, and she leaves no stone of her own personal healing journey unturned. Dee works with the alchemical aspect of transmutation in her art, using this process to deal with difficult topics, including, abuse, death and loss. Since the rise of the Me-Too movement, the female voice has been gathering momentum and power. Despite the universality of the female experience as a theme in art, it has been largely underexplored.
Within this context, Dee’s performance art is provocative and has a political point to make, highly social, collaborative and community building. She is driven by story and symbolism, how we remember and interpret history and women ́s role and their bodies within that.
Growler is Dee Mulrooney’s alter-ego and performance piece. She is an 82-year-old drum banging shamanic vulva living in exile. Using the vehicle of Growler, Dee delves into the depths of woman. The anonymity of the costume allows Growler to speak her mind on taboo topics like sexuality, religion and sexual violence. Driven out of her home by eviction and a poor quality of life, Growler has appointed herself the voice of the scorned, forgotten woman. She explores the flexible and multifarious possibilities of women ́s sovereignty. We are having conversations that weren ́t possible 5 years ago. Inspired, Dee locates her arts practice at the leading edge of these conversations-fearless, confident, open and inclusive in what is possibly the most exciting and powerful time to be a female artist. Growler at the coalface, walking the streets, reclaiming the sacred forgotten tracks and pathways with her trolley, lighting blazing fires along the way to transmute suffering into healing.
“Where Ye From?” is Dee´s Edinburgh Fringe´s award winning,( Lustrum award for most unforgettable show) 5 star show (The Scotsman). Dee has exhibited and performed dozens of times in Ireland, England and Berlin. Projects and collaborations include, Bridget ́s Flamin show 2023, “Her Story” Illuminations 2023, sell out shows at the Dublin Fringe and Cairde Sligo Arts Festival 2022, Burning Woman Festival 2022, Healing Bridges Festival 2022, “Stay with me” Tuam babies exhibition 2021, and many independent shows in Ireland and Berlin. She formed the feminist “ Holy Cvnt Collective”, who exhibit and perform regularly since 2019.
