A significant series of contemporary fine-art portraits celebrating eleven pioneering Munster women have been unveiled as part of Accenture’s Women on Walls at University College Cork, in partnership with Business to Arts.
A significant series of contemporary fine-art portraits celebrating eleven pioneering Munster women have been unveiled as part of Accenture’s Women on Walls at University College Cork, in partnership with Business to Arts. The works recognise women whose leadership, creativity, and dedication have made a lasting impact on Irish society, and form a permanent addition to the university’s historic Aula Maxima walls and the UCC art collection.
This chapter of the Women on Walls campaign began with a nationwide open call in 2024, inviting the public to nominate Munster women who have or are making impactful contributions to Irish society. More than 600 nominations were submitted, and a selection panel, comprising UCC staff and student representatives, reviewed the nominations, ensuring the final selection represented a diverse cross-section of Munster women, acknowledging both historical figures and contemporary trailblazers whose work continues to shape communities today.
Following the selection of eleven subjects, Business to Arts led the artist open call and managed the commissioning process end-to-end. This marks the fourth chapter of Accenture’s Women on Walls, and the first to feature an open call for both the subjects and the artists. The appointed artists — Vera Klute, Vanessa Jones, Gerry Davis, and Julianne Guinee — have created stunning portraits that bring these remarkable women’s stories to life.
Pictured during installation are Vera Klute and Vanessa Jones' portraits. Photo Credit: Shane O'Neill
The commissioned works comprise three individual portraits and one group portrait by some of Ireland's finest established and emerging artists. Each portrait reflects the subject’s character, achievements, and enduring influence, resulting in a series that is both artistically compelling and culturally significant.
Gerry Davis was born in Cahir, Co. Tipperary, in 1985 and studied painting at LSAD from 2005 to 2009. He is based in Limerick, where he was a founding member of Wickham St Studios. His work spans realist and imaginative painting, drawing on autobiographical experience and observation of contemporary life.
In 2016, Gerry was awarded the Hennessy Portrait Prize, which led to working full-time on commissions and exhibitions. The following year, his portrait of Henry Shefflin was unveiled at the National Gallery of Ireland. He has had solo exhibitions at The Source Arts Centre, Galway Arts Centre, Pallas Projects, the Bourne Vincent Gallery, Limerick City Gallery of Art, and, most recently, the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion in Cork.
His work is in the collections of The Arts Council of Ireland, the OPW, and the University of Limerick, and he has exhibited internationally in China, the UK, and New York.
Vera Klute is a visual artist based in Co. Kilkenny. She was born in Germany but has lived in Ireland since 2001. Her work utilises a range of different media such as sculpture, painting, drawing and video animation. Themes span from formal portraiture and public sculpture to kinetic installation.
The artist is well known for her portraiture and has received many high-profile commissions for paintings as well as busts. She has two portraits in the National Gallery’s portrait collection and is represented in the National Self-portrait Collection, the Kings Inns, as well as the Royal Irish Academy, the Office of Public Works and the Arts Council. She has undertaken numerous portrait commissions for universities, including the RCSI, UCC, DCU, UCD and UL.
She has received a number of award,s including the Anita Young Bursary (2022), the Hanley Sustainability Energy Award (2021), the Solomon Fine Art Award (2020), the Hennessy Portrait Prize and the Hennessy Craig Scholarship (both 2015), the K+M Evans Award (2013) and was shortlisted for the RCSI award.
She has had solo exhibitions at the RHA, the Butler Gallery, Limerick City Gallery, the Molesworth Gallery, QSS Gallery and the LAB. She has received several Arts Council Bursary Awards and was elected member of the RHA in 2018.
Born in Tennessee, Vanessa Jones is a visual artist living and working in Dublin, Ireland. She received her BA in Fine Arts in 2003 from the George Washington University in Washington DC. Since completing her MFA in 2021 at NCAD, her paintings have received multiple including the R.C. Lewis-Crosby Award, the Centre Culturel Irlandais Residency in Paris, as well as the Arts Council Ireland 2022 Next Generation Artists Award. She is also the winner of the inaugural self-portrait Sequested Prize, 2021, based in London, UK. Her portraits have been shortlisted from 2021-2023 in the Zurich Portrait Prize at the National Gallery of Ireland, and she has exhibited in solo and group shows at the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Kerlin and Molesworth galleries in Dublin as well as the ISA Gallery in Indonesia at BIRAMA 3/4 at Art Jakarta Gardens 2024 and Tutur Bentuk 2023. Her works are in multiple private and national collections across Europe, America and Asia, and she is currently a part-time lecturer in the Painting Department at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland.
Julianne Guinee is an Irish figurative and landscape painter based in Buttevant, County Cork. Rooted in classical oil techniques yet edged with contemporary critique, her paintings of women and children in domestic spaces hold both tenderness and unease, inviting reflection on motherhood, memory, loss, and resilience. She has worked full-time as an artist since 2019, following a career in primary education. Guinee exhibits throughout Ireland, including at the Royal Hibernian Academy, and in 2025 appeared on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year.
Find more information on the incredible trailblazing women featured in these portraits, and the journey so far of this campaign here.
Pictured is Gerry Davis' portrait delivery to the Aula Maxima. Photo Credit: Shane O'Neill
The unveiling at UCC marks the latest chapter of Accenture’s Women on Walls campaign.
Business to Arts has partnered and project-managed all four chapters of Accenture’s Women on Walls in the past decade, recognising women’s leadership and contributions across Ireland’s public institutions and illustrating how collaboration between cultural institutions, corporate partners, and contemporary artists can produce enduring works that enrich the cultural record and inspire public engagement.
This partnership exemplifies the kind of purposeful partnership we strive to enable, where business and the arts work together to inspire, to challenge, and to shape the world around us.
“ Accenture’s Women on Walls is about who we see, and who we celebrate, in our public institutions. Too often women’s contributions go unseen and uncelebrated. These magnificent portraits of eleven remarkable Munster women help redress that imbalance. We are honoured to partner with UCC and Business to Arts to showcase their legacies for generations to come.”
