{"id":546174,"date":"2026-07-12T17:17:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T17:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/546174\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T17:17:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T17:17:28","slug":"sculptor-sean-henry-when-i-do-the-eyes-thats-when-i-get-a-sense-of-presence-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/546174\/","title":{"rendered":"Sculptor Sean Henry: \u2018When I do the eyes, that\u2019s when I get a sense of presence\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surprises always await at the Festival Gallery in Galway<\/a>. Since it opened, just off William Street, in 2019, the former An Post sorting office has hosted an exploding Range Rover, a clutch of almost-human hybrid creatures and a robed group witnessing a martyrdom. <\/p>\n

Figures have, for want of a better word, figured largely. These previous shows, courtesy of David Mach, Patricia Piccinini and Ana Maria Pacheco, respectively, have pulled off the particularly arts-festival feat of giving you something to think about while also offering a wow for the passing crowds.<\/p>\n

The surprising thing is the sheer variety of expression. Aside from Mach\u2019s frequent explosions \u2013 he has featured at Galway International Arts Festival<\/a> four times \u2013 the sculpted humanity by Sam Jinks, Pacheco, Piccinini and, now, Sean Henry is all remarkably different.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that shouldn\u2019t be surprising, as we are, of course, infinitely varied ourselves. <\/p>\n

First up are the raw materials: Jinks and Piccinini work with variations on the theme of silicone, fibreglass, resin and human hair; Pacheco with wood. Henry\u2019s medium is clay, cast in bronze for the larger pieces, then hand painted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt humanises them, I think,\u201d the softly spoken artist says of the painting process. \u201cWhen they come back from the foundry they have a different feeling. It can be nice in its own way, but it\u2019s quite Mount Rushmore \u2013 immutable, you know?\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Ramp,Ramp, by Sean Henry. Courtesy of the artist and Galway International Arts Festival 2026 <\/p>\n

He started making clay objects at a young age. \u201cWhen I was growing up they were always little figures for some reason, little clay figures.\u201d <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a thoughtful and intelligent quietness to Henry, who is best known for his big public sculptures. Despite his success, you get the impression he\u2019s uncomfortable with the workings, and the competitive measurings, of the art world. <\/p>\n

Most artists find the art world disheartening, to be fair, but some appear to manage a thicker public veneer. Henry seems to have almost painful levels of attention, soaking up mood and detail and diffusing it into his work.<\/p>\n

Apart from a couple of initial sessions, such as for his portrait, in 2015, of Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, for the National Portrait Gallery in London, he works from photographs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not good at having someone in the studio, standing before me, not least because the clothes move all the time,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019d think after all these years I could invent folds, but I really need to look at them. They\u2019re so mysterious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ManMan in a Room, by Sean Henry. Courtesy of the artist and Galway International Arts Festival <\/p>\n

Born in Woking, in the southern English county of Surrey, in 1965, Henry studied at what was then Farnham School of Art; he went on to become a visiting artist at the University of California. Location mattered. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe brightly glazed, colourful ceramic work I made in California in the early 1990s made sense,\u201d he says. \u201cThe bright light, big cars, the positivity of that period in America \u2026 Then I brought these objects back to London, where I got my first studio in 1994, and they looked kitsch.\u201d <\/p>\n

These days his works are more muted; he cites Lucian Freud and Alberto Giacometti \u2013 \u201cthe way he handles clay is so, so beautiful\u201d \u2013 as influences.<\/p>\n

\"SeatedSeated Figure, by Sean Henry, when it was on the North York Moors, in England. Photograph: RJB\/Loop\/Universal via Getty <\/p>\n

Out in the world, Henry\u2019s Couple (2007) stands on a raised breakwater at sea in Newbiggin Bay, in Northumberland, in northeastern England. Standing Man (2010) is in Stockholm, and Lying Man (2011) is in Michigan. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Alberto Giacometti: Sculptor of existential angstOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

So popular was his piece Seated Figure (2017) when it was up on an outlook on the North York Moors, that it was ultimately moved to Yorkshire Sculpture Park to protect the fragile environment. Another version of the edition is in New Zealand, while a third is, for the duration of Galway International Arts Festival, installed outdoors at Claddagh.<\/p>\n

The figures are always either outsize or small scale, but even with the enormous pieces there is a commensurate quietness and thoughtfulness to Henry\u2019s work. <\/p>\n

Exploring the Festival Gallery, I can\u2019t help thinking of Blade Runner. \u201cI make friends,\u201d JF Sebastian says in Ridley Scott\u2019s 1982 film. \u201cMy friends are toys. I make them.\u201d For a sci-fi action flick, Blade Runner is remarkably replete with moving and poetic moments, as the emotional boundaries between the made and the human intersect and are breached. <\/p>\n

\"StandingStanding Man, by Sean Henry. Courtesy of the artist and Galway International Arts Festival 2026 <\/p>\n

We don\u2019t need science fiction for this \u2013 we are prone to anthropomorphise anything, from swearing at our computers to patting our cars \u2013 but go into a gallery full of lifelike, if not life-size, human figures and it\u2019s almost impossible not to feel a sense of living presence.<\/p>\n

Some of this is in the detailing, and a great deal in the process. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a point, early on when I\u2019m making a figure, when I do the eyes. That\u2019s when I get a sense of presence. I\u2019ll jump around. I\u2019ll look at a shoe, then a shoulder. I\u2019ll build up to an eye.\u201d <\/p>\n

Henry points out the surface of Standing Man (KL) (2018), a rugged grey-bearded figure in black shirt, trousers and boots. The folds on the fabric are extraordinary, as are the hues in the aged skin. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople never comment on it particularly, but there are no buttons, no zip. There\u2019s no extra in the surface detail \u2026 It\u2019s an issue with more hyperrealistic work,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause you don\u2019t get the soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

The size is important, according to Henry. He recalls Ron Mueck\u2019s sculpture Dead Dad, from 1997, which appeared in Charles Saatchi\u2019s Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London that year. <\/p>\n

That piece has the hyperreality Henry decries, but it works because it\u2019s at approximately half life-size. The vulnerability in the piece is overwhelming. Often we can let ourselves into art through those little gaps of not-quite-rightness, although they must be finely judged. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the psychology of scale. If we come across something that\u2019s mimetic, that\u2019s trying to be like us, it\u2019s horribly wrong. When something is smaller we can imagine ourselves into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all the reality, theatricality matters too, and Henry frequently breaks his train of thought to describe how the lighting will be when the show opens. <\/p>\n

\"SeatedSeated Figure by Sean Henry. Courtesy of the artist and Galway International Arts Festival 2026 <\/p>\n

He goes to the theatre obsessively, he says, and there\u2019s a sense of the stage set in some of the tableaux. Freed from the gallery-imposed politesse over at Claddagh, Seated Figure, just beyond Galway\u2019s Spanish Arch, is already a climbing frame for local kids enjoying the summer-afternoon sun. During their periodic absences, the stoic thinker serves as an inscrutable backdrop for selfies. <\/p>\n

On Eyre Square, Henry\u2019s piece The Wanderer (2013) is based, he admits, on the opera singer Bryn Terfel. In the gallery, Hedda (2018) is clearly the actor Ruth Wilson. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Wanderer, by Sean Henry, when it was on show in Sydney. Photograph: William West\/AFP via Getty <\/p>\n

Many figures are portraits of self and family, some born of necessity during the pandemic. \u201cBut,\u201d Henry says, \u201cknowing who it is reduces it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s right, in that his sculptures are most impactful when they are open to interpretation. Lying Man (2021), in which a small incubus-type figure prances on the chest of a supine man, has too much overlaid narrative to allow the mind of the viewer to fully run free. <\/p>\n

At their best, instead, Henry\u2019s figures hold time in a way that implies an antidote to our fear of loss: that anxiety about the memories of loved ones slipping away. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Monumental misstep: Frank McNally on the \u2018tragedy\u2019 of a great Irish sculptor, John HughesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just making friends: it\u2019s making eternity. This comes back to my mind as I later listen to a radio segment about the funerals of the future, where the dead can play, and replay endlessly, via AI. It seems an almost unimaginably awful thought. These sculptures do defy, and deny, time, but an aspect of this art is that it holds on, so that we can love and let go.<\/p>\n

\"You'reYou’re Not The Same (installation detail), by Sean Henry. Courtesy of the artist and Galway International Arts Festival 2026 <\/p>\n

Back to those Galway gallery surprises: perhaps the biggest is that, unused for 30 years before the festival team brought the interiors back from dereliction, the William Street Festival Gallery is still dark for 11 months a year, apart from an occasional pop-up courtesy of the Tulca Festival of Visual Arts. <\/p>\n

It will be up to whichever developer buys the site from An Post to deliver a cultural space as part of the overall development, although the shape and scope of that are not yet set.<\/p>\n

When the space first opened as a gallery, in 2019, the festival\u2019s artistic director, Paul Fahy, reminded visitors that \u201cthis is a space that Ireland owns\u201d, An Post being a commercial state company. <\/p>\n

Noting then the festival\u2019s origins in 1978, Fahy said \u201cit\u2019s kind of shocking that, 42 years later, Galway is still without a proper cultural hub and a proper gallery\u201d. <\/p>\n

This is notwithstanding the sterling work done by smaller spaces, such as Galway Arts Centre<\/a> and the 126 Artist-Run Gallery<\/a>. Seven years on, Fahy remains hopeful although, one must assume, frustrated. \u201cObviously, it is a wonderful space with great possibility,\u201d he says. \u201cWe would love to imagine the gallery as a long-term space for the festival and Galway.\u201d Wouldn\u2019t we just.<\/p>\n

Sean Henry: Presence is at the Festival Gallery, as part of Galway International Arts Festival<\/a>, from Monday, July 13th, to Sunday, July 26th <\/p>\n

More art highs at GalwayAleana Egan: A Maritime ChildInterface Inagh\"AA detail of Remote Sense (Isuzu Trooper), by Aleana Egan. Photograph: Silva Cappellari <\/p>\n

The set-up at Interface, in the Lough Inagh Valley, is almost an art installation in itself. Working indoors and out, Aleana Egan\u2019s subtle abstract sculptures trace networks in the former salmon hatchery, bringing in materials from the rich trove on site. Don\u2019t expect immediate meaning; with Egan\u2019s work, ideas tend to come to you later. Always worth an explore.<\/p>\n

Dolores Lyne: Rebel KinFestival Printworks Gallery\"House,House, by Dolores Lyne McCarthy <\/p>\n

A recipient of the festival\u2019s forward-thinking Elevate bursary, Dolores Lyne continues work from her earlier To the Letter exhibition, based on the discovery of correspondence between her great-uncle Gen Liam Lynch and his brother Tom. Lyne\u2019s large folded-out canvases write the letters large, and re-create locations from the War of Independence and the Civil War. Moving and fascinating. <\/p>\n

John Rainey: DeviationsGalway Arts Centre\"VenusVenus Error, by John Rainey. Courtesy the artist and Berg Gallery, Stockholm <\/p>\n

Riffing on classical statuary, John Rainey\u2019s mythological figures imagine a world where postmodernism blends with cyberpunk to add prosthetics, grafts, new alignments and adaptations. Depending on your own feelings about the future, this is either beguilingly witty or redolent with dystopian dismay. <\/p>\n

Lorraine Tuck: LimboFestival Printworks Gallery\"GlenhoghanGlenhoghan Cill\u00edn, by Lorraine Tuck <\/p>\n

Moving and haunting, Lorraine Tuck\u2019s imagery of cillin\u00ed \u2013 historic burial grounds for stillborn and unbaptised children \u2013 are initially arresting for their stark beauty. Knowledge of what lies beneath adds its own shocking power, extending to the realisation that all lands hold their secrets, often their secret shames. Alongside, Jackie Nickerson\u2019s Stateside, also at the Printworks Gallery, tours from the Highlanes Gallery, in Drogheda, showing excerpts from the photographer\u2019s visual diary of a decade living and working across the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surprises always await at the Festival Gallery in Galway. Since it opened, just off William Street, in 2019,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[102837,307,304,305,306,308,93,106964,61,60,139538],"class_list":["post-546174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-alberto-giacometti","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-galway-international-arts-festival","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lucian-freud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}