Niamh Barry Debuts Monumental New Work at Salon Art + Design
On view with Maison Gerard, the one-of-a-kind lighting sculpture Slow Crawl reflects on themes around femininity and motherhood as well as strength and resilience
The expressive lighting sculptures conjured by Ireland-based designer Niamh Barry command attention for their distinct golden glow and unexpected, sculptural forms. Working at a color temperature of 2,700 Kelvin, the same shade as fire, her bronze pendants, sconces, and table lamps draw viewers in like literal moths to a flame. And as an early adapter of LED, she creates pieces that radiate illumination without the obvious light source, adding to their magical allure.
Now, the designer is set to debut a monumental new work at Salon Art + Design; entitled Slow Crawl, the 9-foot work evokes a feminine energy with voluptuous basins woven together on a sinuous ribbon of gleaming polished bronze.
“I’m always working on new pieces and Salon has become a really important moment in time that I work towards,” says Barry, a Galerie Creative Mind, who created Slow Crawl specifically to be shown at the venerable New York fair, taking place at the Park Avenue Armory November 6 through 10. “It allows me the luxury of being able to completely immerse myself in something that’s purely for myself.”
Working intuitively, Barry conceived the piece with familiar cues from her portfolio, but with new elements and inspirations. “When I was making this piece, I really had a very strong urge to make something that spoke more of a female form,” she says. “I was thinking of nurturing and this womb-like energy I want the piece to give off.”
Taking more than 3,200 hours to produce over 32 weeks, the sculpture—one of the most time consuming of similarly scaled works—also connects to the arduous process of creating, during which an artwork evolves, and an artist pauses, reflects, makes changes, leading to the step-by-step construction of a finished piece, an experience that informs the piece’s title, Slow Crawl.
“I don’t always set out with a goal: This is what I’m trying to express, this is where I am, and this is what I want to do,” Barry reflects. “It’s in the process of making that these things will become apparent to me, and sometimes not even until the piece is completely finished and it reveals itself, then I can understand what it is that I’ve been trying to do.”
Part of that introspection comes as Barry’s daughters are now adults with one living outside of Ireland. “It’s been quite a funny time for me; I really loved being a mother for the last 25 years, but now I’m stepping back and reclaiming a little bit more of myself,” she says. “That sort of day-to-day motherly role is over for me, and I’m coming to terms with this real shift in my life and getting back in touch with myself in ways that I haven’t been for quite a long time. I really do think that this piece is speaking about that.”
Yet, while the work addresses feelings of femininity and nurturing, it also speaks to strength and resilience, suggest Barry, who in her Salon presentation will also unveil a sleek mirror-polished sconce informed by offcuts found in her studio entitled Blade as well as a pair of bronze wall-mounted sculptures that work in dialogue, I’m Here, You’re There.
“For me, it’s the creative process that really interests me. I’m obviously very happy when people enjoy the work and want to live with the work, but I’m looking forward to hearing how people perceive it,” she says of Slow Crawl. “I hope that people see it is much more substantial, and it has a lot more gravitas. And there is that strength but there is also that femininity and if it expresses that and people get that, then I’ve done my job.”