Susan O’Byrne – Five sisters & a family tree

SUSAN O’BYRNE five sisters & a family tree

SUSAN O’BYRNE five sisters & a family tree

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clockwise from top left: Family Tree (Porcupine, Mouse Deer, Gobi Jerboa, Echidna, Possum), 2015. largest: 70x145x60mm

CONTENTS 7 Foreword

by Philip Hughes

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Five sisters & a family tree

by Elizabeth Moignard

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Biography

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Acknowledgements

Blue Turacos, 2015. 230x340x90mm each

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FOREWORD Five sisters & a family tree is a new body of ceramics from Susan O’Byrne.

It offers a very personal journey into a private world. “I’m taking inspiration from my own family history, specifically my mother’s side of the family who migrated from Germany to Ireland in the mid 1800s. The five sisters are my grandmother and her four sisters.

They will each be represented by a ceramic animal, and are the largest pieces in the exhibition.” Susan writes: “Our childhoods are filled with animal images, their many names, shapes, colours and patterns fuel our early imaginations. Throughout history animals have also been used in storytelling, legend and folklore to simplify the complexities of adult life. In the same manner, I use the animal form as a vehicle for the expression of human emotions.”

Deer with tree blanket, 2015. 880x730x280mm

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Born in Cork, Ireland, Susan O’Byrne moved to Scotland to take up a place at Edinburgh College of Art in 1994. Graduating in 1999 with a FirstClass Honours Degree in Design and Applied Art, a Post Graduate Diploma in ceramics followed.

Shortly after this Susan moved west to set up her ceramic studio practice in Glasgow. She has exhibited widely, been an artist in residence, and also manages to find time to lead many award winning community art projects. Susan has been the recipient of many awards and commendations, among them a Scottish Arts Council Setting Up Grant and a Craft Potters Association Charitable Trust Fund Award to undertake a drawing and research trip to Kenya.

The development and realisation of the new work for this exhibition has been supported by a Creative Scotland Small Project Fund Grant.

Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at Glasgow University, Elizabeth Moignard, visited Susan in her Glasgow studio and writes overleaf.

Philip Hughes Director, Ruthin Craft Centre, 2015

Fables and Figments, Ruthin Craft Centre, 2011

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FIVE SISTERS & A FAMILY TREE The image of Susan’s work which sticks in my head from a visit to a local gallery is a life-size sculpture of a lamb, posed nervously and slightly awkwardly, as if for take-off; a facial expression which I would read as nervous, if not fearful, with intense dark eyes, and widespread ears.

The lamb’s fleece has patterned interventions – a partial mosaic of fine textile or tile-like areas on its back. Not far away is a badger sitting up, with a checked breast and underbelly, countered by incised fleur-de-lis patterning over its shoulders, and a disconcerting trail of red down one side of its back. Both animals expect a very intense engagement with their viewer: they look you in the eye, and expect to be invested with a personality or an interpretation of their expression and stance: Susan’s own artist’s statement, and a conversation with her, confirm that this is her working intention – we tend to invest these creatures with a personality which originates in our own, and probably do the same with living creatures too, whether observed in passing, or much loved pets with habits which we have time to notice, and think we understand.

Sheep (detail), 2015. 720x700x320mm

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There are many representations of animals in Glasgow’s art collections, both public and private.

Not all of them feature as the prime focus of the image, but it is an interesting exercise to go and see what you can find, even as incidental appearances. The Hunterian collection has two 17th century Dutch group portraits with a pair of spaniels having a growly spat at the front – I had not noticed these until I went to look – they are a small feature and one tends to look over their heads. Not far away, though, is Stubbs’ wonderful mood statement about the Moose, a gloomy animal exuding intense depression in a miserable landscape: a postcard I used to send to fellow sufferers in exam time. The city’s public collections feature animals as the primary subject sometimes – highland cattle are naturally a part of the national agricultural landscape – but few if any thoughts about the Burrell Collection seem

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Zebra Finch, 2015. 70x120x30mm. Red-headed Finch, 2015. 70x130x50mm

to notice how far animal art figures as a key theme, from cheeky sheep in a mediaeval tapestry to two ancient Greek Minotaurs, to many horses racing and working, Chinese dogs and lions, a strutting cockerel in a Roman mosaic. You notice that I am, at least partially, reading human interpretations into these images, and also that the collections reflect a local interest which is so embedded that it can pass us by very subliminally.

My first thoughts about Susan’s work were to highlight that local theme, and to reflect on the interest in and commitment to animals and their supposed or observed behaviour and psychology which is so evident in these local collections.

So far, so good, and I still think there is an important reflective strand there, but a visit to see Susan in her Glasgow studio at the beginning of what turned out to be a remarkable day

Lovebird, 2015. 70x135x30mm

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previous page: Guinea Fowl (detail), 2015. 540x400x210mm. Hornbill (detail), 2015. 170x340x70mm

introduced some other thoughts on her work and practice which must gain an airing too.

Susan showed me some of the work in progress for this exhibition, in various stages of completion, and talked me through her careful and meticulously slow production process.

On the open table in the studio were another lamb, complete with embroidered fleece and an equivocal facial expression, another badger, a guinea-fowl, and some smaller birds.

Round the corner was a space with headmoulds, including some scary crows which will be in the show, one of the metal armatures on which the animals are built, and trays of paper clay which will form some of the surfaces.

I was also shown some of the laser-cut stencils which are used to create the very complex patterns on the paper clay. Gradually I was allowed to form a sense of a making idiom in which the armature is invested with stoneware and then a porcelain layer, which will take the partial patterned surfaces and acquire texture and colour.

Crows, 2015. 230x380x100mm each

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The meticulous attention to the details and making process are a key element of Susan’s practice – it takes time, intense care and precision, and the outcomes are personal and tactile.

Susan told me something about the people who inspired this show: the five sisters of a previous generation of her Irish-German clockmaking family, whose love of textiles, embroidery and tapestries fed into Susan’s use of pattern, and the evidently inherited commitment to detail and taking time to achieve an impressively high level of fabrication quality. A conversation followed about both our families’ female members, and their particular sets of hand-skills and making pleasures, which were both taken virtually as a given, and part of domestic creative practice, whether or not they contributed or cross-referred, as my mother’s did, to a professional one: her surgical activities were surely underpinned by capacity as a metalsmith, a tailor and a carpenter. Susan clearly carries her family’s making genes; I rather doubt that I would make the same claim, and I think that as a generation, we tend to assume that many of these making habits and pleasures are much less common than they used to be.

Deer (detail), 2015. 880x730x280mm Unfired deer being packed in kiln

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That said, later the same day I travelled home with two distinguished female professors, one an engineer and the other a cultural sociologist, from a ceremony in which they were being inducted as Fellows of a major learned society. I had told them about my visit to Susan’s studio, and we were soon talking about female skill sets; as we talked, the sociologist got out a sock which she was knitting for her husband in traditional fashion with four needles. I told Susan about this later, and she said that she also enjoyed knitting or crochet on public transport. A cheering final note to a complicated day with many strands of thought which came together in an unexpected finale. And I arrived home to find our small tortoiseshell cat sitting at the top of the stairs, looking at me climbing them with wide dark eyes in the shadow, and spread ears, very like Susan’s lamb.

Elizabeth Moignard June 2015

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Sheep, 2015. 720x700x320mm

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Two Hornbills, 2015. 170x340x70mm each

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BIOGRAPHY Education 2000 Edinburgh College of Art –

Post Graduate in Ceramics 1999 Edinburgh College of Art – Degree in

Design and Applied Art (1st class) 1991 Grennan Mill Craft School – Co.Kilkenny Exhibitions – Solo 2015 Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin 2012 The Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire

Galerie Marianne Heller,

Heidelberg, Germany 2011 Galerie du Don, Aveyron 2001 The Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire Exhibitions – Two-person 2014 Bircham Gallery, Holt

Contemporary Ceramics, London Exhibitions – Group (selected) 2014 Selected at Dovecoat

Studios, Edinburgh 2013 Westerwald Ceramics

Museum, Hesse, Germany

Craft Scotland at SOFA, Chicago

Selected at Dovecoat

Studios, Edinburgh

Bluecoat Display Centre, Liverpool

Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow

National Craft Gallery of

Ireland, Kilkenny 2012 NCGOI at COLLECT 2012, London

Ceramic Art London 2012, London 2011 European Makers Gallery,

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Lavit Gallery, Cork

Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin

Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth

Galerie Terra Delft, Delft, Netherlands

Ceramic Art London 2011, London

Guinea Fowl, 2015. 540x400x210mm

Awards 2015 Creative Scotland –

Small Project Fund Grant 2014 Inches Carr Trust – Craft bursary 2012–13 Crafts Council of Ireland –

Irish Craft Portfolio Critical Selection 2010 Creative Scotland –

Creative Development Grant 2003 Scottish Arts Council –

Individual Development Grant 2001 Scottish Arts Council – Setting Up Grant 2000 New Designers –

Highly Commended Award

CPA Charitable Trust Fund Award –

Wildlife drawing and research

in Kenya 1999 Edinburgh College of Art – Andrew

Grant Post Graduate Scholarship

Edinburgh College of Art –

Helen A Rose Bequest 1996 Edinburgh College of Art –

Andrew Grant Travel Bequest Artist in Residence Kreisspk, Bernberg, Germany, June–October 2004; Edinburgh Zoo, January–September 2002 Publications Additions to Clay Bodies Kathleen Standen, 2013; Sculpting and Handbuilding Claire Loder, 2013; Irish Craft Portfolio Critical Selection, 2013–14; August 2012; AD Architectural Digest (GER), 2012; Keramiek (NL) (Pages 14–15), June 2011; Brandpunt Terra, April 2011; Ceramic Review (pages 28–33) feature article, March 2011 Memberships Member of Portfolio, Design & Crafts Council of Ireland; Professional Member of the Craft Potters Association; Member of Contemporary Applied Arts

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Family Tree (detail), 2015

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Ruthin Craft Centre would like to thank Susan O’Byrne, Dr Elizabeth Moignard, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Creative Scotland; Lisa Rostron, Stephen Heaton and Rachel Shaw at Lawn.

Gregory Parsons, Pete Goodridge and ArtWorks; Arts Council of Wales and all the team at RCC.

Each object is produced from layers of printed and patterned pieces of porcelain paper clay, that are applied to form a skin over a wire framework and then fired in the kiln.

Susan O’Byrne especially thanks Creative Scotland, Bruno Gallagher, Madeleine O’Byrne and everyone at Glasgow Ceramics Studio and Ruthin Craft Centre.

cover: Deer (detail), 2015. 880x730x280mm page 3: Red-headed Finch, 2015. 70x130x50mm back cover: African Finches, 2015. largest: 70x130x50mm

RCC exhibition and education staff: Philip Hughes, Jane Gerrard, Sioned Phillips, Joe Jubb and Einir Wyn Jones Photography: Bruno Gallagher Design: Lawn Creative, Liverpool Print: Team Impression, Leeds Translation: Nia Roberts Published by: Ruthin Craft Centre Text © The Authors 2015 ISBN 978-1-905865-73-4 Ruthin Craft Centre, The Centre for the Applied Arts Park Road, Ruthin, Denbighshire LL15 1BB Tel: +44 (0)1824 704774 www.ruthincraftcentre.org.uk Ruthin Craft Centre is revenue funded by the Arts Council of Wales and is part of Denbighshire County Council.

This publication is also available in Welsh.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without written permission from the publishers.

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