Artworks by Eithne Ring and Liam Lavery
Title: Iasc
Artist Name: Eithne Ring and Liam Lavery
Year of Installation: 1998
Dimensions: 90cm
Medium: Bronze Panels
Location: Creamery Pier, Whiddy island, Bantry, Co. Cork
Details of Commission: Iasc is a low-relief sculpture set in a wall at the Creamery Pier on Whiddy Island. The work was commissioned as part of the reconstruction of the Creamery Pier by Cork County Council and the Irish National Petroleum Corporation, and funded by them and the Department of Art, Heritage the Gaeltacht and the Islands.
The entire sculpture represents fish, tail and head high, as if about to leap, with a sailing boat above. The fish is composed of eleven panels in bronze, four of the panels representing the tail, head and fins of the fish, while seven main 'body' panels of the fish each represent a different facet of local life and history. The first panel represents tourism and shows a hiker walking through the countryside, with a man on a bicycle in the distance. The second panel shows a seaplane and a fort, which are both part of the history of the island. The third panel from the left represents farming, and shows a tractor in a furrowed field. The fourth panel, shows fishing nets being thrown into the sea from a boat. A barrel is visible in one of the nets. This is a reference to a local story about fishermen from Whiddy finding barrels of petrol floating in the sea in 1917. As petrol was strictly rationed at the time, the find was a valuable one. The fifth panel represents marine life, and shows fish and crustaceans. The sixth panel is a low-relief map of Whiddy Island, the circular tanks of the oil refinery forming a distinctive pattern on the lower part of the island. The last panel contains a text which gives details of the commissioning of the work.
Artist Bio: Eithne Ring was born in Cork in 1965. She studied filmmaking, mime and painting at the Crawford College of Art graduating in 1987. The following year she exhibited along with Liam Lavery at the Cork Arts Society. She has also exhibited at the Firkin Crane Centre and the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery in Cork, the library and the Schoolyard Theatre in Charleville, the 1601 Gallery in Kinsale and the Boole Library at University College Cork. Ring has also made several animated films, including "When I consider...." which won the Best Cork Film award at the 1987 Cork Amateur International Film Festival, and "Rince" which was shown at the galway Film Fleadh in 1995. she has worked on theatre and film-set design and construction. Ring's commissions include the "Green Man" wood carving at Glenstal Abbey in Co. Limerick, a series of presentation paintings commissioned by the Irish Management Institute (1992), and two carved oak panels for Caum Church in Macroom (1994). In 1996 Cork Corporation commissioned 13 plaques at Peacock Lane, and the following year thirty-six enamelled copper pieces of Maher Avenue (incollaboration with Liam Lavery). In Limerick, Ring sculpted a bronze relief sculpture for the Cornmarket development, and created a millenium sculpture of a bronze globe and flame for the village of Ballyhea. In Blarney, again working with Liam Lavery, she sculpted ten way markers for the River Martin walkway from cast aluminium and sandstone.
Artist Website: (Not yet available)
