27 August to 1 September
More is Different - a series of sculptures displayed in Flowerfield Park
by Sara Cunningham Bell
Friday 27 August 1pm to Saturday 4 September 2021, 1pm.
Flowerfield Park
More is Different is a ‘gathering’ of sculptures temporarily displayed external to the front of Flowerfield Arts Centre in Flowerfield Park.
The larch sculptures explore one form in relation to another: how together they are more; how alongside each other they can enable possibilities to grow; their amalgamation is a positive resource beyond themselves.
“Form both captures and releases simultaneously, revealing as it veils. I am here, they inform us. The verb every someone and something manifests, being in-act, existing, shimmering before eyes that deign to look.
Tread carefully, and with attention, that natural prayer of the soul, which forbids because it renders possible all exploitation, the only fruit of ignorance. For there, in that trough of the disappeared, all goes unnoticed, torn asunder, and carried off.
We are here, is uttered. More is different. The rhythms of form conspire to union, bring together what was thought, mistakenly, to be both dumb and blind. The very slightest stands out communing with that from which it is formed, both inside and out. Summoned by that which is before and after, and thereby calling form to ecstatically be beside itself, with neighbour, sister, brother, soil, and matter, which some take to be mere.
More is different, and the slightest is monumental. The very song of existence.” (C Cunningham, July 2021)
This sculpture series by visual artist Sara Cunningham-Bell, is supported by The Arts Council Northern Ireland through the SIAP, award in 2020.
Parts of the series are selected for the exhibitions at: The National Botanical Gardens, Dublin (simultaneously showing) and the Royal Ulster Academy 2021. This is the first public viewing of each piece at each show.
The local larch is consciously sourced, and the project’s aim is to give respect to circular economy and the tending to environmental issues whilst maintaining the exploration of creativity. Some pieces incorporate Cor-Ten steel and colour pigment rubbed into the wood pores.
Presently Sara is completing a park sculpture over 6 metres tall, through public engagement for Finglas, Dublin; a commission she won in 2021 with Dublin City Council supported by Visual Artists Ireland and the Hugh Lane Gallery.
Her sculpture work in 2021 is also represented in the Irish Ceramics book, 3rd Edition, launched late August, compiled by John Goode, supported by DCCI and CraftNI. Sara Cunningham-Bell works from her bespoke, green architecture studio which she and her husband, architect Murray Bell, made on the north coast of Ireland; website, http://www.cunninghambell.com/
