Patsy Tyrrell: We are both of this world.

Patsy Tyrrell: We are both of this world.
2021, kesto 01:50

My name is Patsy Tyrrell and I am a second year Sculpture and Extended Practice student at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland.

My work is an attempt to put form to the points of contact that tether me to a space.

Life is rich with these points of contact, they define the spaces around us. The substance and materials that are these points of contact become our tethering points to memory and experience. One such example I always think about is this: a man spoke to my uncle about how when his wife was in a wheelchair they would walk along the east pier because the concrete was smooth and she could be comfortable. Now he walks alone, but he thinks about the softness of the concrete with each step.

I rely on the meaning and memory imbued within the materials I use. The cold earthy smell of mossy rock from roadside ditches is the substance of a space of mudcakes and hiding from faeries, or a space to be beaten up in, my face pressed into the muck. Crystical plaster folded carefully and timed thoughtfully is indicative of the strength and fragility of a passing moment. Molds made from details of a childhood home, capture a parent’s careful decision and the memory of a space made to hold loved things. Weathered sandstone with the curve of Atlantic erosion reveals time, movement and persistent existence. The cut lines through stone show an intervention, the dust of a village mined, an attempt to find. The meaning of each material and object however, cannot really be articulated, because materials are a language of their own otherwise untranslatable.

I rely on this language to encompass these points of contact. I want each piece to encapsulate a feeling, a memory, a sense of the landscape around me. As such, it is about the tangible physicality of the spaces I inhabit and encounter, as I perceive them.