Eilis O'Connell:
HAPPENSTANCE

O’Connell’s sculptural work often evokes states of becoming and transformation, reflecting her long-standing fascination between the organic and geometric in the natural world. This way of working melds irregularity and flow to the precise and mathematical, emblematic of a human relationship to nature. Since the beginning of O’Connell’s career in the late 70’s, she has employed this tension of configuration through her simultaneously monumental and intimate work. Her attentive process is of happenstance: a responsiveness to a materials behaviour and chance occurrences that are worked through and feel not imposed but discovered. Through careful observation of the everyday landscape in her Cork home, O’Connell’s practice instils curiosity and an unexpected sense of discovery and awareness.

This solo exhibition thematically links across O’Connell’s distinguished career to her newly created works; tracing an on-going dialogue with material, form and making across steel, bronze, stone and wood. Her sculptures display a quiet emergence; etiolated shapes that stretch and search like living matter seeking light. Other works explore pattern and balance, reflecting a tension between interior and exterior worlds. Throughout the exhibition, there is an unfolding of organic and geometric form which produce a glimpse of something, an unusual way of seeing.

Presented as part of the Glucksman’s commitment to exhibiting older artists actively engaged in contemporary art practice, HAPPENSTANCE invites us to contemplate themes of resilience and growth, structure and fragility, and the unforeseen beauty of discovery.

HAPPENSTANCE is supported by The Arts Council Ireland, University College Cork and private philanthropy through Cork University Foundation.