Sculpture in the Parklands
2002-2010
The work Cycles is a conglomeration of ideas derived of Lough Boora’s inherently beautiful landscape and wealth of cultural heritage. It focuses on the cyclical nature of land and mankind’s interaction, be it ownership or the purpose for which the land is used.
The overall sculptural form proposes a crown referencing the early Kingship of Ireland. At the base of the sculpture are twelve blade forms, symbolic of blades engaged to cultivate the earth. The raised linear stone wall which emanates from each blade into the landscape stands, as a recorded memory of the scaring required in bringing forth new life.
An arc fabricated from a recycled Bord na Mona train rail that had been originally used for harvesting peat positions the blade form. These arcs reach up into the sky then bend at the top to signify growth bending under the weight of fruit that is new life. New life is represented by the red seed forms spiralling out from the top of each arc to start a new cycle. The regal colour red simultaneously symbolizes life and death thus, providing a complete cycle.
Cycles
2006
Caroline Madden’s Cycles (2006) results from the artist’s sensitive understanding of place, and specifically the Lough Boora Parklands where industrial, primordial, natural exists as a multi-layered pot pourri of traces, tracks, diverse growth forms and peat layering on clay. Just as this ancient place was once covered by waters at the end of the ice age, it still holds water due to the clay layering's beneath the peat. And Madden’s is the most feminine of sculptures, with its red seeds that extend out of the spirals atop the piece, symbolic of flame, of growth, of passion, and the fruit of a new life that will emerge as these Lough Borough land return to a variety of land uses that will generate biodiversity. The twelve plough blades form reflect the old peat harvests, while the regal red colours atop can likewise be suggestive of a decorative crown, a reference to the early Kingships of Ireland who would have traversed these lands inadvertently,
Just as Mesolithic people would have hunted and gathered for their livelihood here, as witnessed by the old shoreline site nearby, a beach in ancient times, now simply part of a landscape. Indeed the Mesolithic site on Lough Boora lands, discovered by former Bord na Mona employees Kieran Egan and Joe Craven and excavated by archaeologist Dr. Michael Ryan, contained artefacts dating back to 6800-7000 BC, the oldest recorded site of human activity in Ireland. New life, and a gradual transformation all this emblemized clearly and with subtle balance of forms, shapes are what mark Caroline Madden’s symbolic sculpture.
John Grande Art/Nature Dialogues
Caroline Madden (USA/Ireland)
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