Michael Quane’s sculpture celebrates the ordinary citizen rather than leading political figures, writes Peter Murray in his appraisal of the Cork-born artist
Since graduating from the Crawford College of Art in 1986, the sculptor Michael Quane has lived and worked for the most part in Co Cork. He works almost exclusively with Kilkenny limestone, which he carves with extraordinary skill, having developed a personal and unique style in which animal and human forms are often juxtaposed or intertwined.
Quane’s work is figurative, and lies somewhere between the symbolic and metaphoric. Many of his sculptures are akin to memorials, but he tends towards the depiction of anonymous citizens rather than leading political figures from history. In Quane’s own description of his 1995 sculpture at Mallow, Horses and Riders, he makes the point that the figures are depicted unclothed in order to prevent assumptions being made about their stations in life (Fig 5). The message that ‘all men are created equal’ underpins the artist’s vision. Many of Quane’s sculptures are small or medium scale, but he has also carried out several important public art commissions, including Fallen Horse and Rider (Fig 4), sited at Midleton in 1994, Horses and Riders positioned at the Mallow roundabout the following year and Figure Talking to a Quadruped (Fig 2), sited in the grounds of University College Cork (UCC).
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