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© Sophie Kate Curran
© All rights reserved
© All rights reserved
© All rights reserved
© All rights reserved

Sophie Kate Curran

  • Ceramicist
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Rising Star
Sophie Kate Curran Ceramicist
Contact
English
Hours:
By appointment only
Phone:
+353 872175313
© Sophie Kate Curran

When the ordinary is extraordinary

  • • Sophie's work explores identity, fragility and instability
  • • She makes sculptures out of used teabags
  • • In 2019, she represented Ireland at a World Crafts Council exhibition in Kuwait

Sophie Kate Curran grew up with a creative mother who surrounded her with art, and a father who worked as a plasterer, so the idea of handmaking objects was always in her head. But it took a “wonderful” art teacher at school to show Sophie that it was possible to have a career in art and design. She took a degree in ceramics and glass in Dublin and then gained valuable work experience as an artist’s assistant and an intern at a pottery, before deciding to set up her own studio in her back garden. She now makes conceptual ceramic sculptures, drawing on the Irish landscape, society and organic forms and exploring themes of identity, fragility and instability.

Read the full interview

Works

  • © All rights reserved
  • © All rights reserved
  • © All rights reserved
  • © All rights reserved
Photo:
Ruins of Modernity

Sophie’s technique is to fill tea bags with porcelain slip and leave them to dry. She then removes the bags to expose delicately textured, organic, shell-like structures that resemble bone marrow or fossils found on archaeological digs, like casts encasing a modern moment in time.

12 cm
50 cm
10 cm

Photo: © All rights reserved
Social Entropy III

This contemplative work discusses the impact of the economic crisis on contemporary society. Through an innovative technique, Sophie transforms mundane teabags into sculptural forms, an attempt to capture a fleeting moment. Her inspiration and identity as an Irish artisan drove Sophie to collect teabags from different areas in Ireland. They bear witness to conversations and hold the memories of those who used them.

32 cm
55 cm
25 cm

Photo: © All rights reserved
Social Entropy

These fragile constructions discuss the impact of an economic crisis on contemporary society. The connections between each segment and the overall balance tensely conveys a feeling of instability, constant unpredictability and disorder. The individual forms were created by immersing teabags in porcelain slip and assembling them once dry.

30 cm
60 cm
20 cm

Photo: © All rights reserved
Entropy II

Sophie’s Entropy series was born from an exploration into Ireland’s recent economic past. Inspiration also came from research into dendrochronology, the scientific method of dating tree rings.

45 cm
50 cm
40 cm

Photo: © All rights reserved
Isolation

This piece was inspired by the provincial and rural landscape and territory. It discusses a feeling of isolation, with conversations captured and woven together like a blanket trying to heal the wounds of longing. To create the piece, Sophie immersed porcelain slip in tea bags. Once they were dry, she cut and ground the shells, exposing the textured, organic structures.

32 cm
27 cm
12 cm

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