To This I Put My Name – Mission Gallery

The vaulted space of Mission Gallery is a potent setting for Claire Curneen’s latest body of work, an exquisitely modelled cast of ceramic figures whose silent yet imposing presences offer poignant reflections on the nature of humanity and our precarious place within it.

Developed over two years, this exhibition is the culmination of an Arts Council of Wales Ambassador Award project, also supported by Mission Gallery and Ruthin Craft Centre, where it will subsequently open in March. Initially, Curneen worked in response to the collections of The National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, where the production values, materiality and narratives of her selected artefacts provided rich inspiration. Whilst artist-in-residence at Mission Gallery, drawing played an important role in the development of this research; Curneen’s studio wall offers a cluster of tender resonances and relationships between watery-linear or velvety-dense drawings and the photographs of museum objects. Information was filtered and re-formed, ideas emerging as evocative human equivalents.  Drawing is a conduit for this artist, the transition between fluid thought and physical expression.