Sculpture in search of Soul

Relationship status

in a relationship

College / University

Emerson college, UK

Program

School of sculpture

Graduation

June 14, 2004

Member type

Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Sculpture

I am...

Irish ,Born in Co. Galway, in 1970.
Now living in Rhiw, on the Llyn peninsula, North Wales.Uk

I began sculpting in bog oak in 1989 and I have exhibited in Ireland, Germany and Czech Republic, and the UK.
I turned away from bog oak in 2002, as I was keen to open up new possibilities, and so began a three year Sculpture course at Emerson College.It was here I began working in clay; I explored my own unique forms with no restrictions.
I concerned myself with grasping pure abstract forms. But recently this new abstract/figurative work is my attempt to draw the viewers closer into the work, so they may experience these soul gestures within themselves. To enter into a sculptural work, abstract or figurative, one try’s to imagine ‘being the sculpture’, how does it feel? This reveals to us that our unique human, inner experience, can experience/ feel with , the sculpture that is out there standing before us.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C.V

1989 - 1992 Diploma in Art & Design, Sligo R.T.C, Ireland

Exhibitions: 1992 - 1994 Exhibitions of Bog Oak Sculpture
"Past Moons" Galway
"Love for Oak" Galway
"Transpersonal" Killarney
"Durrow Castle" Laois
"Arts Festival" Sligo
1995 "Galerie Karolinum " Czech Republic
"Galerie Berlin " East Berlin

Training: 1995 - 1996 Furniture restoration in Czech Republic

1996 - 1997 Mental Health Care -Woodwork teacher at Camphill, Aberdeen
[furniture making with disabled adults]

Self-employed: 1997 - 1999 Manufacture and Retail business
[Custom made Sculptural furniture], Galway Ireland

Voluntary work: 2000 - 2001 Building a playground with children in S. India
Travel/visits to India,Pakistan, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand

Adult Education: 2002- 2005 Diploma in Sculpture . Emerson College, East Sussex
Certificate in Pedagogical [educational] Sculpture

Exhibition: 2007 March Group Show at Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw , N.Wales

Self-employed : 2005-2008, : Working with Menter y Felin Uchaf,
Artist Environmental Education and Art-Projects officer, Coordinator/tutor.
. Designing /Creating Ecological building -Landscape Art- The Earthouse.
. Establishing a Educational Programme in Sculpture , Tutoring courses.
. Outreach Art Projects , Polish Home Society Garden project.

2009, commission, . by Lord Mervyn Davies, Sculpture ”mother”, Abersoch.
. 2nd edition created (donation) for Plas glyn y Weddw.
2009,;group Exhibitions, : . Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw , N.Wales.
. Limehouse gallery, London
. Oriel pendeitsh, caernafon, N.Wales.
2010 . Oriel Clwyd theatre, Cymru, Mold, Conwy, N.Wales.
. Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw , N.Wales.
2011. Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw , N.Wales.- work always available-here.

About my artwork

My Forms are explored in clay, and when finally achieved, I make a mold, so I cast

them into various materials, for instance-plaster, resin or bronze
.
I am Inspired by, the human beings unique mysterious experience, - to wonder,

marvel and have reverence for the beauty of human existence,nature and the living

earth.
My work is often created small, but with the intention to enlarge them, into life size so the viewer can interact and sit on the work. They are figurative, but also abstracted, and so are non- representative. These figurative forms, often poised in the act of contemplation, expressing the secret inner reality of a perceptive mind.
My work seems to convey an almost receptiveness to the viewers presence. They invite the viewer to relate and become part of the work, as the observer experience it, the form becomes alive with them. I use universal themes, that everyone can relate to, as I wish to evoke inner experiences within the viewer, as they witness, what is expressed in the outer form of the sculpture. And I believe, with a touch of humor everything can be experienced.
The works ask the viewer to be active, to search within the Soul, so to experience beauty in form. To become alive, in our World of endless forms where everything is related, forever changing and becoming something else.
The aim is to be transformed, so the Soul is calm, gentle and spacious and experiences something eternal in everything.
My intention is try to bring the viewer closer to the Human experience of beauty, grace, dignity, imagination, Soul and Spirit.

The form will often arise in the depth of the intangible chaos, of the unconscious, and I only really experience it when I create it. Therefore, it comes from an impersonal source, and through the process of creating, it becomes a personal work.Recently the work is inspired by the beauty of the human being, and our unique relationship to nature,
- trying to build a bridge between earth and heaven. Art for 'heavens sake'.
Sculpture is what I do, practiced with care and imagination, creativity is what gives me vitality and hope, a meaning to my own existence and aspirations to know a spiritual realm. The mysterious experience is a fundamental emotion – to wonder, marvel and have reverence for the beauty of existence, nature and the living earth. Creativity is the activity of the Soul; the unconscious and gives expression to the archetype or an aspect of the eternal. This for me is, the easiest and most natural way to transform the heart and to know oneself.

Creating Art is like a meditation, because it is superfluous, even useless. It serves no practical end. Life goes on without it. It may not necessarily make me rich, healthy or happy. Yet, I feel it does, and is the most important thing I can do in life, because it is a completely free act that I can perform alone. Nothing compels me to meditate or create art; there is no real reason to do so, only because I choose to, as a free decision, a free deed: just because.
Moreover, because it changes me each time I create, because I begin anew. It brings meaning to life, because it allows me to intuit what is not yet and thereby begins to give birth, to a creative act. This is where I can most fully become myself.
This gift of creativity is given to me, and I do it without any expectation of reward.
I create, because I choose to, and it leads me out of my ordinary everyday self and allows me to begin to experience the universal aspect, of whom I am: my attention, in my thinking, feeling and willing. Therefore, I feel practicing art leads me to self-knowledge. My Art work is a dedication to personal research,my interest in the universal aspect of who we are. And this is done, in contemplating the world around me, and within me. And then to give birth to new ‘forms’. This changes me; I become in union with soul, letting truth come to life. And makes it possible to make the invisible – visible.

Artists I like

Sculptors,
Brancusi, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Alberto Giacometti, , Ernst Barlach, Anish Kapoor, Joseph Beuys, Hans Arp, Picasso, Isamu Noguchi, Andy goldworthy, David Nash,
Painters
William Blake, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Braque, Picasso, Marc Chagall, Bonnard, Klee, Miro, Kandinsky.
Cecil Collins.

What exhibitions are good at the moment?

David Nash, at Yorkshire sculpture park.

Centre of the artworld:

nowhere and everywhere