April 28 to June 2, 2016
Opening reception: Friday, April 29 from 6 – 8 pm.
In Mise Éire – variations on the theme “what is Irishness?”, Cormac Boydell has made large ceramic plates and sculpture that use as their starting point explorations of Ireland’s elemental landscape, the human attributes within it, and our evolution from mythological beginnings through early Christianity to the present.
In making his work, Boydell uses no tools, relishing instead the direct contact between hands and the clay. He uses a terracotta clay chosen because of the beauty of its orangey colour which is the perfect background to the colours he works with. His understanding of the glazes that he makes himself can be described as an alchemy of bright, brilliant results. His drawing style animates each work with a rhythmic energy.
Boydell was born in Dublin 70 years ago and worked as a geologist before moving to Allihies, on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork, in 1972. He has been working full-time in ceramics since 1983 and is considered one of Ireland’s most important ceramicists. He is represented in numbers private collections and in public collections including: the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin; the Ulster Museum, Belfast; the National Self-Portrait Collection, Limerick; the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin.
Below are images of most of the work in the show. To get information on dimensions and price, as well as what has sold, click on the thumbnails.
