‘Bounty’
bronze, LED light, portland stone, edition 2/3
bronze size 38 x 38 x 8 cm
photos by Stuart Smyth
THE WORKS RTE 2013
SEA-CHANGE
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change,
Into something rich & strange [1]
A creature whose very strangeness helps us to see ourselves more clearly by showing us what we are not [2]
This new body of work by Rachel Joynt comprises of delicate bronze ‘sea forms’, alongside pictographs created from sand and precious metals which explore and compare contrasting themes around our Earth’s wealth and riches. This work plays with the complex relationship between ecology, economy and the ebb and flow within markets and ocean currents.
Joynt brings a level of delicacy and fragility to figurative sculpture that is based on the remnants of sensitive and fragile life forms that were once the inhabits of unpolluted pockets of ocean. She employs Echinoid Skeletons, in particular the sand dollar species, as a metaphor for richness and wealth and the search for rejuvenation and sustenance. These delicately perforated symmetrical forms emanate warm light and optimism in chalky opalescent colours. Permanence, transience and flux are reoccurring themes and her use of sand, light, precious metal dust, glass, bronze and cast iron communicates these concerns. For Joynt, scale is also important, transforming our normal viewpoint by using different magnifications, she allows the subject to take on a new presence.
Rachel Joynt grew up in Dublin and currently lives & works in rural Carlow. She graduated from the National College Of Art & Design in 1989 and was elected full member of the RHA in 2005. She has had solo shows in Dublin, Belfast and Marseille, has exhibited in many group shows and her public artworks include Mothership, 1999 at Dun Laoghaire’s seafront, Starboard, 2001 alongside the River Lagan in Belfast, Guiding Star, 1990 at Port Oriel fishing harbour in Co Louth, Noah’s Egg, 2004 outside the Veterinary building UCD and Golden Apple, 2012 for St Nessan’s College, Limerick. Rachel is currently working on a large artwork for NUI, Maynooth with artist Remco de Fouw.
With thanks to Artlinks, Wink Lighting, Malham Lighting, Cast Ltd and Remco de Fouw
