Eileen MacDonagh

They spring from a harmonious and human-centred vision which seeks to charge natural materials with an aesthetic significance governed always by principles of clarity and formal coherence.

Their major analogues derive from architecture and from craft... though never minimalist, the sculptures can sometimes be minimal, working to achieve a sort of meditative stillness where every details counts."

Eileen has both organised and participated in the International Sculpture Symposium movement, in Ireland and abroad; her work is included in numerous collections, such as the Irish Office of Public Works (OPW), the Lough Boora Sculpture in the Parklands, County Offaly, Kilkenny and Cork County Councils, Marlay Park, Dublin and Tawara Newtown, Osaka, Japan.

Catherine Marshall, head of collections at Irish Museum of Modern Art, wrote in 2005 that: "when MacDonagh talks about granite and limestone her language takes on a new dimension, introducing the listener to colour, texture, density and ultimately to the processes that working with them involve.

In recent years she has undertaken large-scale public works in stainless steel – The Medusa Tree (2009) for VISUAL, The Contemporary Art Centre, Carlow and – The Tallaght Cross (2008).

Her 2008 Fire from Stone show at the Centre Culturel Irlandais featured four major installations, the largest of which was composed of fifteen pieces of differing sizes.