by sara cunningham-bell MSc,PGDip Des, PGCE,BA(Hons)
Local larch harvested near to the studio, lazer cut Corten steel patinated which absorbs light and, mirror polished stainless steel reflecting light. Hard wood plinth frame with basalt stone and fluorescent stone centre. The latter lights up in the dark.
h: 170w: 90d: 24 (cms).
The form is inspired by time and material, by our familial correspondence with others - once here, now gone.
The sculpture title “I SEE YOU, I HEAR YOU.”, expresses the acknowledgement of another, through time.
The sculpture looked at energy lines of language in Neolithic stone carving (Knowth), whilst in physical dialogue with the time held in the wood’s materiality, i.e., in its patterned grain - the actual body flesh of the larch sculpture. Ubiquitous time is imprinted within its summer and winter growth lines, waiting to be found, disclosed.
Sculpting techniques applied include: carving, laser cutting, welding.
It's integral plinth base is: 90 cm long x 43 cm at widest point to 6 cm at narrowest tip x 12cm deep approx.
£6800
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Sara Cunningham-Bell works out of a studio on the North Coast of Ireland and The Highlands of Scotland. Central to her work is the endeavour to interrupt the dualisms that divide up the lived world, forming the realities we seek to inhabit. The most important of these being, spirit / matter.
Such dualisms work only by a reactive, rather than a creative mode of thinking, for any value allocated, or found is only the result of its opposite. In other words, the accepted depends on the rejected, the venerated on the despised, and the sacred on the profane.
Cunningham-Bell's art negotiates this quandary, in an effort to present the truth of beauty - a truth that cannot be dependent on the ugly. Her figurative sculptural and painting practice endeavours to seek the beauty in the person through diverse media from bronze to varying types of steel, calcined clay to oil paint.
Biography
Sara Cunningham-Bell works from her North Coast studio and The Highlands Scotland; her work has been commissioned internationally and privately.
Sara studied at Edinburgh College of Art, Glasgow Strathclyde University and Queen's University at Masters Level, receiving the Andrew Grant Award at ECA for her initial undergrad work, later representing Ireland at the Grands et Jeunes D’Aujourd’Hui Salon 2000 in Paris, Luxembourg, Japan.
Recent Gallery Work: Presently showing in Dublin at the European Parliament Liaison Office, Ireland with Hamilton Gallery; at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh with the SSA; completed (November 2024) the sculpture group show at The Himalayan Sculpture Park, North Yorkshire; and Solo sculpture show, 'Congruent', with the F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio, Banbridge.
Recent Public sculpture work, completed August 2023, was commissioned by Belfast City Council (funded by the Special European Peace Body): with 6 site specific sculptures and a video. The main iconic sculpture is 7.8 metres, walkable under and around, is made from 256 casts in treated aluminium, other works are installed across a 12 km City walkway made from Corten and concrete, each are site specific and delivered managing a multidisciplinary team: engineer, electrician, architect, builder, Health and Safety officer. This work is quickly viewable on: You Tube, as, 'Carry Each Other, lompair a Chéile', Belfast Public Sculpture.
Sara's work has selected for the WB Yeats Retrospective Show, Hamilton Gallery, Ireland, (2023) and the 'Ancestral Homes' Show opening in Beijing in June then touring four cities: Shanghai, Chengdu (VA Gallery), Chongqing (VA Gallery) September to January 2024; with sculpture work selected for the Sculpture in Context show at The National Botanical Gardens, Dublin August to October 2023. She is showing work at the Drenagh Estate Gardens, Limavady 2024-2025.
Recently completed: the successful Dublin, park sculpture (steel, 7.5 metres tall), commissioned by DCC with Sculpture Dublin supported by The Hugh Lane Gallery and Visual Artists Ireland; viewable here:
:http://www.cunninghambell.com/dublin.html#/
SIAP award from Arts Council NI (2020) supported the start of a new studio practice direction in locally harvested larch. This sculpture work was exhibited in the Royal Ulster Academy (RUA, 2021), Belfast, Portstewart and the ‘Sculpture in Context’ show, National Botanical Gardens, Dublin (2021); it inspired a new piece shown at the RUA, 2022, and Drenagh Estate, Limavady. It has been expanded upon for sculpture work in 2023, and work for a sculpture solo in late summer 2024.
Other work has recently returned, travelling across Ireland, Berlin, New York, Luxembourg, curated by Hamilton Gallery. Sculpture showing at The Mall Galleries, London (September-2022), is now the award for, ‘Women in Engineering’, London based; its concept looked at the big industrial machine camouflaging the essential worker within its working cog, inspired by interviews with the Factory Girls, Derry. The latter was a dynamic submission short listed for Derry City Council public sculpture to represent the Derry Textile industry, (steel, 10m tall, in mirror polished stainless and bronze, 2022).
‘Towards Tomorrow’, (9.5 metres tall), commissioned by the Ulster University was short listed for the Irish Sculpture Concrete Award (2020): https://www.cunninghambell.com/sculpture.html
Some Public commissions include: Kingspan Stadium home of Ulster Rugby, DECAL, IRFU, The Mater Hospital Belfast, Dublin City Council public works, Ulster University, Centre of Theology and Philosophy for The Vatican City Rome, Victoria College Belfast, European Union Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Dungiven, Bass Ireland, UK Hotel Chains, Publishing Houses- Eerdmans, SCM-Canterbury, Routledge. Work is also held in private and public collections such as Edinburgh University, Fraser-Smallwood, Bass Ireland, Causeway Coast and Glens Council, Hastings, Murphy (New York).
The studio Practice is represented by The Hamilton Gallery, Sligo.