Cristín Leach visits Eilis O’Connell’s exhibition, which presents nature and geometry, capture and flow, environmental and human-made forms
Eilis O’Connell began her career in the late 1970s and over the past five decades she has solidified her reputation with solo exhibitions, mainly in the UK, Ireland and France, and more than thirty permanent outdoor sculpture commissions installed since 1992 here and abroad. She has been based in Cork for more than twenty years. ‘HAPPENSTANCE’, the title of her exhibition at the Glucksman, is a nod to the role of serendipity in her creative process. ‘It comes from the idea that my life affects my work… not something I can control – like a happy accident. My work is really bound by circumstance, but life is bound by circumstance,’ she says. The show acknowledges her public work while exploring in a more intimate way the importance of scale, presence and materials. The relationships between nature and geometry, capture and flow, environmental and human-made forms are examined in an array of mostly new works placed in careful context alongside selected older pieces. ‘It’s my second time showing in Cork over my fifty-year period of being an artist. The last time was the Fenton Gallery with Nuala Fenton in the 1990s.’
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