Patrick Campbell

Title: Spirit of Love

Year of Installation: 2006
Dimensions: Two large figures in bronze encircling bronze mast, 5m high
Medium: Bronze
Location: Bantry, Co Cork
Details of Commission: Commissioned by Cork County Council with funding from the Per Cent for Art scheme to commemorate those who have lost their lives at sea

Artist Bio:  One of my earliest memories as a toddler was being sent with my older sisters to the Loreto Convent in North Great George's Street, Dublin, and wanting to play with the "márla" or modeling clay, which was rolled in little balls on every desk only to be accessed during "an sos" (play-time). So I contented myself with doodling the time away and settled for a two-dimensional vision of life.

As the years rolled on my artistic yearnings were parked while I became absorbed in building a business and having a family.

When art elbowed its way back into my life, it was through the medium of drawing and painting, which I could pick up and put down, like a pencil in childhood. I resumed courses at the National College of Art (which I had abandoned after leaving school) during the Nineties, but these served mainly to whet my appetite, and so I found myself in Florence one hot summer in 1996, learning to draw and paint in the meticulous manner of the Renaissance artists.

It was then and there that I determined to "stretch the umbilical cord" tying me to my business. While others might choose golf or gardening, I wanted to spend my autumn years painting.

So, every summer, I returned to Florence to learn more. I found a studio space in Dublin also and tasted life as an artist.

In 2002, I decided to take a course in sculpture in Florence in order to improve my painting. A veil was lifted and I felt the poetry of form flowing from my fingers. Perhaps this is my natural calling and, although I love to paint, I spend most of my time now with my little balls of "márla", making what I see and feel.

I hit on an ideal studio space at Via Luna, Florence, in 2005, and began to make many of my sculptures there, often commuting back to Ireland to have work finalised and cast.

Artist Website:  www.paddycampbell.ie