Liam Lavery and Eithne Ring, two Cork based artists, have been working on public art projects for the last 25 years that include “Wave” the 20m long bronze Lusitania memorial at the Old Head of Kinsale, the Strongbow and Aoife sculpture in Waterford and our most recent “Meitheal”, a Covid Commemorative bronze sculpture in Charleville, Co Cork.

Much of this work has involved making foundry models or patterns that are used as part of the process of producing finished sand cast bronze pieces. These finished works live in public spaces for viewers to observe and interact with, while the original patterns and models end up in storage. We have not exhibited in a gallery for many years due to being fully occupied with commissioned work, but we have always wanted to see if it was possible to bring our foundry art patterns and models together and present them in a new way within a gallery space while at the same time explore and develop other ideas that do not get expressed in our public art practice.

Twenty five years of work produces a lot of foundry patterns in storage and the thought of making new work to possibly go into storage after an exhibition was something that was on our minds and contributed to our decision to reuse the “leftover patterns”. We are also very conscious of our carbon foot print when making our public art. By selecting some foundry patterns in storage and applying a mixture of powdered graphite and wax, we have essentially repurposed a series of work with a very small carbon footprint; the only carbon being used is in the form of graphite and wax.

LINO-CUT

As part of the exhibition we are also presenting a series of lino cut prints that have been made from repurposed foundry patterns that were used to make the series of bronze panels that tell the story St Brendan the Navigator.

VIRTUAL TOUR

We have made this exhibition into a virtual tour so that we can share the experience with a wider audience. While it is not the same as a visit to the gallery space, it has the advantage of extra features. We have shared photographs and video showing the making of some of the work and the materials used. This vitual tour will appeal to other artists, makers and students alike and provides a more indepth look behind the scenes at the art process and our work.