A very powerful and affecting sculpture exhibition on the famine will open tomorrow Friday December 2 at 5.30pm in Alcantara on Bonham Quay, Dock Road. It will run into the New Year.
Renowned artist and sculptor, Joe McCaul, lives in Ballindereen, Kilcolgan, and has just finished exhibiting these ceramic sculpture pieces in Kinvara. Fired clay figures, they tell the harrowing stories of the lives and deaths of our ancestors during the years of the Great Hunger. The exhibition ran for eight weeks and was a resounding success.
McCaul has been offered a wonderful space in the centre of Galway to relocate the exhibition over the Christmas period. It is in the foyer of Alcantara, one of the new buildings on Bonham Quay, Dock Road.
Here is what some viewers of the exhibition have said: “I have been moved by the story of the famine through books and museums, but these sculptures truly encapsulate the harrowing personal tragedies of so many lives, for the first time in learning about the famine, I am moved to tears. The most emotive real “picture” of famine past and present.”
“We know this without knowing. We all know this, but it takes this great work of art to allow it to touch our hearts and feel it. Deeply important piece of work.”
“This exhibition should be seen by all Irish people everywhere, the trauma hasn’t been felt.“
“Work that provokes a primal scream to the sea.”
Get along and see for yourself.
