Nuala O’Donovan is an Irish Artist, living and working in Cork City on the south coast. She graduated from Middlesex University, U.K. and MTU, (Crawford College of Art and Design), Cork, Ireland. Nuala worked in design in the U.K., U.S.A. and Australia. She returned to Ireland where she taught design at MTU before returning to education to undertake an MA by research in the Ceramics Department at the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork, completed in 2008. Her research area: Irregularities in Patterns in Nature & The Geometry of Natural Forms. Her artwork has been exhibited and published internationally, and she has been an invited speaker and teacher at workshops and International Conferences in Museums, Galleries and Universities.
Beginning with the fractal geometric forms observed in nature, Nuala O'Donovan's ceramics are a result of an intuitive response to the direction that organic pattern takes as well as the irregularity in the handmade elements of the pattern. Through close observation of natural sequences, Nuala’s ceramics reveal the constant and spawning exchange between irregularity and growth.
Her works in Earthly Bodies act as abstract representations of living organisms, their growth exposed and unhidden by fleshly covers. In Nuala’s words “each sculptural piece carries, within itself, its narrative from the time during which it was made.” Through attentive and careful placement of her porcelain elements, the process of making takes months to complete. Her pieces, though perceptibly fragile, reveal the durability and hardness of porcelain and its capacity to be worked into fine detail.
Nuala O’Donovan is an Irish Artist, living and working in Cork City on the south coast. She graduated from Middlesex University, U.K. and MTU, (Crawford College of Art and Design), Cork, Ireland. Nuala worked in design in the U.K., U.S.A. and Australia. She returned to Ireland where she taught design at MTU before returning to education to undertake an MA by research in the Ceramics Department at the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork, completed in 2008. Her research area: Irregularities in Patterns in Nature & The Geometry of Natural Forms. Her artwork has been exhibited and published internationally, and she has been an invited speaker and teacher at workshops and International Conferences in Museums, Galleries and Universities.Beginning with the fractal geometric forms observed in nature, Nuala O'Donovan's ceramics are a result of an intuitive response to the direction that organic pattern takes as well as the irregularity in the handmade elements of the pattern. Through close observation of natural sequences, Nuala’s ceramics reveal the constant and spawning exchange between irregularity and growth.Her works in Earthly Bodies act as abstract representations of living organisms, their growth exposed and unhidden by fleshly covers. In Nuala’s words “each sculptural piece carries, within itself, its narrative from the time during which it was made.” Through attentive and careful placement of her porcelain elements, the process of making takes months to complete. Her pieces, though perceptibly fragile, reveal the durability and hardness of porcelain and its capacity to be worked into fine detail.
