CLAIRE CURNEEN
Between my finger and my thumb
28 February - 17 March 2019
Claire Curneen (born 1968) creates figurative sculptures that poignantly reflect on humanity. Universal themes of loss, suffering, sacrifice and rebirth underpin her works. Hand-built in white porcelain, sometimes with touches of blue or gold, their translucent and fragile qualities offer metaphors through which we can consider the human condition and experience. Born in Ireland, Curneen studied at Cork, Belfast and Cardiff, where she now lives and works.
Claire Curneen starts each of her sculptural ceramic works in the same way, with a small piece of clay. Squeezing it between her fingers, pushing and pressing it into the curved centre of the palm of her hand, she flattens it into a small disc. These discs are the building blocks of her figures. By pressing and squeezing them together she begins to construct a hollow form in much the same way a potter will build up a coiled bowl. She starts with the feet, slowly adding layers of clay, making sure that those at the bottom are slightly thicker to take the sculpture’s weight. Then, as she makes her way up from legs to torso and then the figure’s neck, the clay becomes thinner and the process faster. Finally, she crowns the head with a thin disc of clay, smoothing and caressing it until it is indistinguishable from the rest.
Curneen loses herself in the meditative repetitiveness of this initial phase, achieving a haptic familiarity with each figure as she feels the clay through her fingers and her fingers through the clay. When the basic form is complete she starts on the details, introducing delicate facial features and spending time working on the hands and fingers, making subtle adjustments to their position, deciding what they should do: whether to point, lie limply at the side, be open and inviting or gently cradling? Whilst ancient sculptors believed that it was the final act of painting in the eyes that gave their work life, in Curneen’s case it is this final positioning of the hands that animates her forms, providing their individuality, and expressing their different emotions, narrative and character.
