About
Cíana Fitzgerald is a Writer, Director and Fine Arts Painter from Ireland. Her work delves into the numinous experience, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans; the divine mystery of cosmic order, before which humans tremble in awe.
With a background as a multi award winning fine arts painter and informed by her own near-death experience, her cinematic practice utilises 16mm and super 8mm analogue film to explore themes of celestial death and rebirth; the sublime crucible of destruction and genesis.
She is a first-class honours graduate in Fine Art Painting from The National College of Art and Design in Dublin, drawing inspiration from the Old Masters of the Baroque era, 19th Century Romanticism and the European Symbolist movement. Her meticulous painterly approach to composition, chiaroscuro, and psychological tension informs her cinematic language, crafting frames that feel as if painted on linen canvas. This fusion of classical artistry with avant-garde film creates a visceral and hypnotic visual world; a baptism of light and shadow.
Her work has been exhibited and screened from South Korea to Berlin, New York City to the Atacama Desert in Chile, and she most recently won the Irish Contemporary Art Society for a Work of Distinction by an Emerging Artist at the prestigious Royal Hibernian Academy, 2025. She is currently in pre-production with ‘Ex Altiora,’ her live-action fantasy short film which serves as proof of concept for her debut feature film in pre-production.
Cíana has given artist talks on her practice at the Science Gallery, Trinity College, SÍM Gallery at Korpúlfsstaðir, Iceland, and the Guinness Storehouse. She has been the recipient of bursaries from the European Commission, Goethe Institut, The Arts Council of Ireland, Creative Ireland, Wexford County Council, Dublin City Council and Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown County Council.
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