Eileen MacDonagh was born in Geevagh, County Sligo Ireland in 1956 and has worked as a sculptor since the 1980s. For her contribution to sculpture and the Arts in Ireland, MacDonagh was elected in 2004 to Aosdana, the Irish Arts Council organisation that recognises artists that have contributed a unique body of artistic 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

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...

 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

Sculpture in the Parklands

The Sculpture in the Parklands is a land and environmental sculpture park located in Lough Boora, Co. Offaly, Ireland. The park is open to the public 365 days of the year and admission is free. Wheelchair access and disabled parking are available at the sculpture park. The Offaly Ways passes...

, 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, 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'. .

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

Geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

. 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 the Centre Culturel des Irelanda is show featured four major installations, the largest of which was composed of fifteen pieces of differing size. The individual pieces were based on icosohedral 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.

News

In January 2012 MacDonagh will be showcasing new original works alongside past works in a Retrospective Exhibition of her work at VISUAL, the Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland

Awards & Public Art Commissions

• 2010 Arts Council Award to attend International Sculpture Conference, London.
• 2010 Kildare County Council Artist Award.
• 2009 The Medusa Tree 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 of Aosdana
• 2001 Commission, The Pyramid, Lough Boora, Co. Offaly, Ireland
• 2001 Commission, Kildavin, Co. Carlow, Ireland
• 2000 Commission, John Roberts Square, St, Waterford, Ireland
• 2000 Commission, Millenium 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
• 1993 Arts Council Travel Award, India
• 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
• 1986 Arts Council Travel Award, Scotland
• 1986 Award Winner, Mobil Young Sculpture Symposia, Scotland
• 1983+81 Award to Execute Work for Independent Artists Exhibit.
• 1980 Student Prize, Claremorris Art Exhibition, Ireland

Key Solo Exhibitions

• 2008 Fire from Stone, Centre Culturel des Irelandais, Paris
• 2005 From Another Constellation, Model and Niland Gallery, Sligo, Ireland
• 1992-1993 Truss Touring Exhibition Projects Arts Centre Limerick City Art Gallery, Ireland

Key Group Exhibitions

• 2011 Group Show, Bohuslan’s Stone Stipend recipients, Hunnebostrand, Sweden.
• 1995 Sculpture Biennale, Caldas Da Rainha, Portugal
• 1993 Sculpture Exhibition, Gulbarga, India
• 1992 Stone Sculpture Exhibition, Kyoto, Japan
• 1990 Hara Mura Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, Japan

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.

External Links

Eileen MacDonagh website

Aosdana page

Medusa tree construction

Pyramid at Lough Boora Parklands, Co. Offaly

Bibliography

• Lane, Ann. 2010. By the Way - a selection of Public Art in Ireland, ISBN 978 1 905569 44 1, pp. 14, 64, 66, 122, 131, 168, 170, 173, 234, 282.

• Dunne, Aidan. 2008. Rare encounter with sculpture in the spotlight. Irish Times, Feb 6.

• 3. Kenny, Padraig. 2008. The French Connection. Sunday Tribune, 28 Sept. p3.

• 4. Dunne, Aidan, 2005. The Art of Geometry. Irish Times, May 23, p.10.

• 5. Woods, Suzanne and Marshall, Catherine. 2005. Eileen MacDonagh: Another Constellation. Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo, Ireland ISBN-10: 0954035291. 24 pp.

• 6. Anon. 2002. A Pyramid for Boora. Tribune, 21 Sept.

• 7. "A Landscape in Stone", Interview by Peter Murray, Irish Arts Review Volume 20, Number 2, Summer 2003. Retrieved Jan 28, 2010.

• 8. Dunne, Aidan. 1992. Triumph of a Sculptural Purist. Sunday Tribune, 19 July.

• 9. Anon. Dubliner's Diary, 10 July, 1992.

• 10. Anon. City Entertainer, Jul, 1992.

• 11. Project Press. 1992. Truss Project Arts Centre Ltd, Dublin, 32 pp. Essay by Medb Ruane. ISBN No. 1 872493 05 X.

• 12. Sendai sculpture symposium catalogue, JAPAN, 1989.

• 13. Die Spur Symposium, Lindabrunn, Austria.

• 14. Sculpture Society Ireland. 1988. Meithal Sculpture Symposium, Dublin

• 15. Collaboration, 1988. The Pillar Project, Dublin.