Eileen MacDonagh was born in

Geevagh Geevagh () is a village in the south-east corner of County Sligo, Ireland, on the R284 regional road. The name, meaning "the windy (place)", describes a climatic feature of the village and its surrounding countryside. The name Geevagh also r ...

, County Sligo in 1956 and has worked as a sculptor since the 1980s.Project Press. 1992. Truss Project Arts Centre Ltd, Dublin, 32 pp. Essay by Medb Ruane. ISBN No. 1 872493 05 X For her contribution to sculpture and the Arts in Ireland, MacDonagh was elected in 2004 to Aosdána, the Irish organisation that recognises artists that have contributed a unique body of work.

Background

"Eileen MacDonagh's sculptures are candid, direct and ultimately rational. They spring from a harmonious and human-centered vision which seeks to charge natural materials with an aesthetic significance governed always by principles of clarity and formal coherence. Their major analogues derive from architecture and from craft... though never minimalist, the sculptures can sometimes be minimal, working to achieve a sort of meditative stillness where every details counts." —Medh Ruane. MacDonagh's work has featured in many exhibitions, both in Ireland and abroad, including shows in Portugal, Scotland, India and Japan. Eileen has both organised and participated in the

International Sculpture Symposium The International Sculpture Symposium movement was spearheaded by Karl Prantl in Austria in 1959. This initiative grew from the need to facilitate communication and exchange between members of the international sculpture community. It was also roo ...

movement, in Ireland and abroad; her work is included in numerous collections, such as the Irish Office of Public Works (OPW), the Lough Boora

Sculpture in the Parklands The Sculpture in the Parklands is a land and environmental sculpture park located in Lough Boora, County Offaly, Ireland. The park is open to the public 365 days of the year and admission is free. Sculpture in the Parklands was founded by sc ...

, Co. Offaly, Kilkenny and Cork County Councils, Marlay Park, Dublin and Tawara Newtown, Osaka, Japan. MacDonagh works mainly in stone to produce large-scale sculptures. Due to the scale of her work, she has tended to concentrate on public art commissions although she has also exhibited in the context of the gallery exhibitions. She received a Diploma in Sculpture at the School of Art, Regional Technical College, Sligo, Ireland (1974–79) and an Art Teachers Certificate from the Limerick School of Art & Design (1979–80). MacDonagh's first solo exhibition in 1992,''Truss'', showed large-scale works made from both wood and stone. MacDonagh has continued through her career as a sculptor taking on large-scale projects, and has built up a large body of public art since across Ireland and in other countries. Catherine Marshall, head of collections at Irish Museum of Modern Art, wrote in 2005 that: "when MacDonagh talks about granite and limestone her language takes on a new dimension, introducing the listener to colour, texture, density and ultimately to the processes that working with them involve. 'Granite is the noblest of stones', she says, 'just the toughness of it. Every time you strike the stone you make fire. Granite is volcanic, it was born of fire and you need fire to form it.' She loves the challenge of working on a large scale, coaxing her vision out of unyielding, resistant stone. The circularity of the process, appeals to her sense of the invisible order that is a hall-mark of her work'."Woods, Suzanne and Marshall, Catherine. 2005. ''Eileen MacDonagh: Another Constellation.'' Model Arts and Niland Gallery . 24 pp MacDonagh is deeply influenced by books such as Robert Lawlor's ''Sacred Geometry'' and Fritjof Kapra's ''The Tao of Physics'' in which formal patterns are linked to ideas, religions and to the physical make-up of the universe. She has investigated the colour, texture and density of granite and limestone, as well as the challenge of working on a large scale. In recent years she has undertaken large-scale public works in stainless steel �
The Medusa Tree
(2009) for VISUAL, The Contemporary Art Centre, Carlow and �
The Tallaght Cross
(2008). Many of MacDonagh's sculptures examines a fascination with geometry. She has long been inspired by the purity and ubiquity of geometric principles and the way in which geometric rules govern the universe. Her 2008 ''Fire from Stone'' show at th
Centre Culturel Irlandais
featured four major installations, the largest of which was composed of fifteen pieces of differing size. The individual pieces were based on icosahedral forms, a complex geometric shape, and are carved from over ten different types of Indian granite. They ranged in size from 4-foot in diameter to just 4 inches, and were all created when MacDonagh was on a residency in India.

Career

In February 2012 MacDonagh will be showcasing new original works alongside past works in a Retrospective Exhibition of her work a
VISUAL
the Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland. The show is called Lithosphere, opening 5 Feb 2012 at 3pm. This exhibition will be open on public display for 3 months

Awards and public art commissions

* 200

Commission VISUAL, the Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland * 2008 Commission
Tallaght Cross
Dublin, Ireland * 2006 Commission, Inst. Technology, Tralee, Co Kerry, Ireland * 2006 Commission, Innis Oirr, The Aran Islands, Co.Galway, Ireland * 2005 Comm. National Maritime College, Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, Ireland * 2004 Commission, Dromahair/Leitrim, Ireland * 2004 Elected as a member o
Aosdana
* 2001 Commission

Lough Boora, Co. Offaly, Ireland * 2001 Commission, Kildavin, Co. Carlow, Ireland * 2000 Commission, John Roberts Square, St, Waterford, Ireland * 2000 Commission, Millennium Fountain, Boyle, Co.Roscommon, Ireland * 1999 Commission, Market Square, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, Ireland * 1998 Commission, Famine Stone, Eigse, Carlow, Ireland * 1997 Commission, Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork, Ireland * 1997 Commission, Dunlaoighre, Co. Dublin, Ireland * 1996 Commission, Kilkenny City, Ireland * 1995 Commission, Portlaoise, Co. Laois, Ireland * 1994 Commission, Mallow Road, Cork, Ireland * 1992 Commission, Dublin Corporation, Clanbrassil St., Dublin, Ireland * 1991 Commission, Regional Technical College, Athlone, Ireland * 1990+95 First Prize Sculpture, Iontas Exhibition, Sligo, Ireland * 1989 Commission, Dublin Castle, Ireland

Key solo exhibitions

* 200
Fire from Stone

Centre Culturel Irlandais The Irish College in Paris (french: Collège des Irlandais, links=no, la, Collegium Clericorum Hibernoram) was for three centuries a major Roman Catholic educational establishment for Irish students. It was founded in the late 16th century, and c ...

, Paris * 2005 ''From Another Constellation'', Model and Niland Gallery, Sligo, Ireland * 1992–1993 Truss Touring Exhibition Projects Arts Centre,

Limerick City Art Gallery Limerick City Gallery of Art (LCGA; ga, Gailearaí Ealaíon Chathair Luimní) is an art museum in the city of Limerick, Ireland. It is run by Limerick City Council and is located in Pery Square, in the Newtown Pery area of the city. The g ...

, Irelan

Collections

The following organisations have collections of MacDonagh's Public Art Sculpture work ;Ireland * Waterford Co. Council * Carlow Co. Council * Dun Laoghaire / Rathdown Co. Council * Kilkenny Co. Council * Cork Co. Council * Mountmellick Library, Co. Laois * Museum Park, Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo * Harbour Board, Aberdeen, Scotland * VEC Co. Sligo * Letterfrack Centre, Co. Galway * Dublin City Corporation, Co. Dublin * Limerick City Corporation, Co. Limerick * St. Patrick's Training College, Dublin * OPW Dublin Castle * Marley Park, Dublin * Cork County Council ;International * Sendai : Peoples Park, Japan * Tawara : Newtown, Osaka, Japan * Regional : Technical College, Athlone * Merzig, : Stones on the Border, Germany * Gulbarga : India.

References

Sources

* Lane, Ann. 2010. ''By the Way – a selection of Public Art in Ireland'', , pp. 14, 64, 66, 122, 131, 168, 170, 173, 234, 282. * Dunne, Aidan. 2008. Rare encounter with sculpture in the spotlight. Irish Times, 6 Feb. * Kenny, Padraig. 2008. The French Connection. Sunday Tribune, 28 Sep p3. * Dunne, Aidan, 2005. The Art of Geometry. Irish Times, 23 May, p. 10. * Woods, Suzanne and Marshall, Catherine. 2005. ''Eileen MacDonagh: Another Constellation.'' Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo, Ireland . 24 pp. * Anon. 2002. A Pyramid for Boora. Tribune, 21 Sep
"A Landscape in Stone"
Interview by Peter Murray, ''

Irish Arts Review Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

'' Volume 20, Number 2, Summer 2003. Retrieved 28 Jan 2010. * Dunne, Aidan. 1992. Triumph of a Sculptural Purist. Sunday Tribune, 19 July. * Anon. Dubliner's Diary, 10 July 1992. * Anon. City Entertainer, Jul 1992. * Project Press. 1992. Truss Project Arts Centre Ltd, Dublin, 32 pp. Essay by Medb Ruane. ISBN No. 1 872493 05 X. * Sendai sculpture symposium catalogue, JAPAN, 1989. * Die Spur Symposium, Lindabrunn, Austria. * Sculpture Society Ireland. 1988. Meitheal Sculpture Symposium, Dublin. * Collaboration, 1988. The Pillar Project, Dublin.

External links

Eileen MacDonagh website

Aosdana page

Pyramid at Lough Boora Parklands, Co. Offaly
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonagh, Eileen Living people Aosdána members Irish sculptors People from Sligo (town) 1956 births Alumni of the Institute of Technology, Sligo Alumni of the Limerick School of Art and Design Irish women artists Irish contemporary artists