Claire Curneen 'To Set the Darkness Echoing'

C L A I R E C U R N E E N T O S E T T H E D A R K N E S S E C H O I N G

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.
A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch,
A white face hovered over the bottom.
Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.
Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.
Seamus Heaney, ‘Personal Helicon’
from the collection ‘Death of a Naturalist’ (1969)

Anima Mundi are delighted to present
‘To Set the Darkness Echoing’, Claire
Curneen’s second solo exhibition at
the gallery.
Darkness is often imagined as an absence:
of light, certainty or understanding. Yet it
is equally a place of profound presence.
It is where memory lingers after those we
love have departed, where grief continues
to speak long after language has failed,
and where faith exists not as conviction
but as the willingness to remain attentive
to mystery.
Claire Curneen’s sculptures inhabit
this contemplative territory, resisting
spectacle, choosing instead the quiet
authority of stillness. These figures rarely
proclaim or perform emotion; rather, they
are imbued with it, holding themselves,
caught within a moment of grace. It is
through an economy of expression that
the work attains its remarkable emotional
weight. These sculptures do not tell us
what or how to feel. Instead, they create
a space in which our own experiences of
tenderness, loss, hope and longing are
gently returned to us.
The human figure remains central to
Curneen’s practice, existing beyond
the specificity of individual identity,
instead occupying an ambiguous
threshold between the earthly and the
transcendent, the temporal and the
eternal. They appear at once ancient
yet immediate, vulnerable yet enduring,
their quiet presence suggesting that the
sacred is not encountered beyond the
human condition but through it.
As with Heaney, for Claire, meaning
doesn’t originate from an ethereal
void. It is born from beneath feet -
from wet mud. Material itself becomes
inseparable from concept. Before it
becomes vessel, relic or figure, clay
is simply earth held in the hand. Clay
- whether porcelain, terracotta or
stoneware - carries distinct physical
and symbolic resonance. Porcelain
possesses an almost paradoxical nature:
simultaneously resilient and fragile,
capable of remarkable strength while
retaining a translucence and delicacy
that recalls skin, bone or the mutability
of flesh. Terracotta remains visibly
tethered to the earth from which it
came, while darker stoneware introduces
a profound gravity, absorbing rather
than reflecting light. Together these
materials speak of permanence and
impermanence, suggesting that our
existence is suspended between these
two states.
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Throughout the exhibition, flashes of
gold and fluid passages of glaze emerge
sparingly across the figures. The gilded
surface creates shivers of light and pools
of darkness, rooting and transcending
the form. These are never ornamental
indulgences. Instead, they recall the
visual language of icons and reliquaries,
quietly suggesting moments of grace
that arise not despite vulnerability
but because of it. Anointing with gold
neither disguises suffering nor redeems
it. It simply acknowledges that what is
most fragile may also be most sacred.
Although deeply informed by Christian
iconography and the devotional imagery of
the early Italian Renaissance, Curneen’s
sculptures ultimately transcend any
singular theological reading. Their
concerns, instead, remain intimately
human. They speak of birth and death,
sacrifice and compassion, exile and
belonging, fear and consolation. They
remind us that acts of care, tenderness
and quiet resilience possess their own
profound dignity, even when certainty
remains beyond reach.
Perhaps the greatest achievement of these
sculptures lies in what they refuse to
resolve. They do not offer redemption as
conclusion, nor despair as inevitability.
Instead, they remain poised within the
fragile interval between the two. In
their silence there is neither emptiness
nor resignation, but attentiveness. They
ask us not to conquer uncertainty,
but to dwell within it with humility
and openness.
In an age increasingly defined by
immediacy, noise and the relentless
demand for explanation, Curneen
offers something increasingly rare: the
possibility of sustained contemplation.
Her sculptures invite us to slow our
gaze, to recognise that meaning often
resides not in revelation but in quiet
persistence. They remind us that mystery
is not a problem awaiting solution but
an essential condition of being human.
An echo is not the moment itself - it
is what remains after the moment has
passed. It is memory made manifest,
revealing to us a deep well of space already
resonant with compassion and longing. A
companion to our own searching in the
dark, affirming that even in life’s most
uncertain passages, something deeper
continues to resonate. Fragile, enduring
and alive, through their tenderness these
profound works offer us hope.
Joseph Clarke, 2025
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Piercing the Heart
majolica terracotta, 43 x 65 x 33 cm
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Nature Morte
majolica terracotta, 30 x 30 x 30 cm
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Siren
glazed terracotta, 72 x 36 x 32 cm
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Painted Tree
majolica terracotta, 145 x 30 x 30 cm
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Mary Magdalene
majolica terracotta, 78 x 28 x 30 cm
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Ancient Plaything
porcelain, 73 x 25 x 25 cm
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Untitled
porcelain, 60 x 30 cm
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Triumphal Arch
majolica terracotta, gold nylon, 70 x 128 cm
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Head of Gold
porcelain and gold lustre, 35 x 20 cm
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Welcome Stranger
terracotta, gold lustre, 73 x 28 x 20 cm
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Limbo
porcelain, 100 x 40 x 40 cm
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Biography
Claire Curneen’s iconic sculptures are poignant contemplations on the
liminal and precarious nature of the human condition, exploring themes
around death, rebirth and the sublime. Universal and profound states of fear,
loss, suffering and sacrifice fuse with devotion, desire, wonder and mystery
to underlie each intricate, porcelain figure. Their translucent and fragile
qualities offer potent, metaphoric abstract narratives. Porcelain, terracotta
and black stoneware creates a grounded vulnerability to these works, with
dribbles of glaze and flashes of gold to embelish denoted sacred qualities.
Claire Curneen was born in Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland in 1968 and currently
lives and works in Wales, UK. Works have been exhibited internationally
and appear in many notable Public collections including the Crafts Council,
London; Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead; National Museum & Gallery of Wales,
Cardiff; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge; Manchester City Art Gallery, Manchester; National Museum
of Scotland, Edinburgh; Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, Wales;
Cleveland Craft Centre, Middlesbrough; Oldham Art Gallery and Museum,
Manchester; York City Art Gallery, York; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern
Art, Middlesbrough; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Eire; Limerick City Gallery
of Art, Limerick, Eire; Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland; Benaki
Museum, Athens, Greece; Clay Studio, Philadelphia, USA; Mint Museum
of Craft + Design, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Icheon World Ceramic
Centre, Gyeonggi-do, Korea; Taipei Ceramics Museum, Taiwan.
Mary Magdalene
glazed porcelain, 38 x 22 cm
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Published by Anima Mundi to coincide with Claire Curneen ‘To Set the Darkness Echoing’
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