Studio Event with Kunstervein Aughrim

Studio Event with Ruth E Lyons Murrevagh, Mulranny, Co. Mayo 2–4pm, Saturday 10 May 2025

A special Studio Event with Ruth E Lyons took place at the artist’s studio in Mulranny, County Mayo, Ireland, on Saturday 10 May 2025.

As part of this event visitors were invited to attend a preview screening of Lyons’ major new film work The Sea Inside Us. The film, by Ruth E Lyons and Colm Hogan, chronicles the human relationship to the sea through salt. In tracing the seam of an ancient ocean, Lyons thinks through aeons and minerals, formulating questions that fathom the unknowable while reaching for the eternal. During the Studio Event the artist spoke about the development of ideas behind the work, inviting visitors to experience a taste of her studio practice on-site, encounter a series of saltrock sculptures in progress, and listen to a live performance created specially for the work.

Ruth E Lyons is an independent artist based in Clew Bay, Co. Mayo. She works primarily in sculpture creating gallery and public works concerned with landscape. She recently realised two major public artworks, Wave Junction, 2023, Quantum Park, Dublin and SUPERUNIFICATION, 2022, Honeypark, Dublin. Lyons’ work has been exhibited internationally and is included in the collections of the OPW, National Gallery of Ireland and Arts Council of Ireland. Since 2014 Lyons has been working on an expansive project with EUSalt and the saltmines of Europe creating carvings from the ancient Zechstein Sea. Recent exhibitions include: New Perspectives, National Gallery of Ireland, 2021, Shaping Ireland, National Gallery of Ireland, 2019, Borderlines, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh and The Edge @ Bath Uni, 2019, The Necessity of Art, Grazer Kunstverein Summer Programme, Austria, 2017, Forecast of the Next Century, 2016, Broad Art Museum, Michigan, Riddle of the Burial Grounds, 2016, Extra City, Antwerp and Follies of Youth, Hepworth Wakefield Gallery, Yorkshire, 2015.

Special thanks to the artist's family, performers Doimnic Mac Giolla Bhríde, Aodhán Gavigan and Daniel Bodwell, and event tech support team Shane Malone-Murphy and Barry Lynch. Video by Infocus Media, filmed on location at the artist's studio in Mulranny, Co Mayo on 10 May 2025. Design by Alex Synge/The First 47.

This performative preview is produced by Kunstverein Aughrim and supported by the Arts Council. Kunstverein Aughrim’s ongoing collaboration with Ruth E Lyons is supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and by Wicklow County Arts Office through the annual Strategic Project Award Scheme.

Angels

There are birds that switch off half their brains and sleep while they fly. Did you forget to switch your brain back on?

Demigod

I am making dinner, a moment’s attention diverted from observing N &E.

Enter into the hall. A flood. Jars, scraps of paper, the unruly effects of un-contained water. Little people, delighted.

Moments later, I am cleaning up after dinner. Enter sunroom. N& E have the tub of vaseline and are gleefully smoothing it over their legs (wegs).

DB outside on the grass, “I just weed in on my shorts!”

N looking on in awe

“I need to wee outside!”

Seconds later

“Mum! This is wet!”

E up to something in the garage, constructive no doubt!

No he is weeing too, no doubt on his shorts.

“Mum, these are wet!”

N is naked

“Mum is it windy enough to fly a kite? “

Me- “No it’s not windy”

It’s blissfully sunny and I can hear the waves lapping on the shore, a reminder of our little idyllic islanded state in the universe.

Val and Min are playing.

DB found treasure in the garage. The hunt has escalated.

E in a funk about not finding summer pants.

“Mum, can I have shorts in bed?”

Peace little demigod you have all you need

He stands up on a chair outside and shakes his little fists in rage

N to E

“stop hitting your Mum”

DB found further treasure: A box of buttons.

Three little gods squatting on the tarmac designing a new world.

N “Can we?”

Me “Yes’

N “Thank you!”

Then E wees into the new world and floods it all.

July

At some point he disappeared into the abyss, the vast blue.

Far from dry land.

There’s no coming back.

Why do we call the unpeopled places lonely?

I imagine him happily floating far out at sea, friends with the Wandering Albatross and the Little Tern.

With nothing solid to hold onto, in the vast fluid ocean, no specifics, no nameable object.

Gone is the whole catalogue of particular things.

If he ever touches land again, his strength will leave him and his bones will turn to dust.

I would cry but where does that leave us…Back here. Emotions are blunted by indifference.

Mute. Mum.

There was a time when he said that July was his least favourite month because of the lull in bird song.

That is such a specific thing, the sound of identifiable birds in time.

Empty that out

and that,

Along with every other thought

where do they go?

Some go into me

Some I have passed on to M, a new archiver of particular things

Others, into the great blue before and after

When I see him he is a shipwreck, a shatter of bones, strewn

Which is active, mind? body?

It feels like punishment to see him, like punishment to him, his being

And yet,

this too will pass.

And what do we learn?

Softness

Stillness

The feeling of time ebbing away

Drawn out, last breaths

in

out

years pass

Maybe we learn how to be with the dead,

that the dead never leave us

the raw life giving love fuels us in everything we do

on a rock

with feeling layers

its beautiful

because it hurts

Gravity is everywhere

But less in some places

Dudio

This always seems like a good idea, and then I immediately regret it, in time I will be grateful for it again.

Ho!

Tour of Ruth E Lyons sculptures with Newpark Comprehensive

photos credit: Kevin Kirwan

A cold February morning, a bus ride to three sculptures near Dublin. Wave Junction (Quantum Logistics Park, Fingal), Iontaise Iontas (Colaiste Raithin, Bray, Co. Wicklow), SUPERUNIFICATION (Honeypark, DunLaoghaire)

What a great day. Curious, open, young minds. Thank you for visiting my sculptures, hanging out with them, touching them, sitting on them and keeping them company on a cold winter’s morning.

Which is your favourite work?

me- the stone one, it's very friendly

If this were an emotion (SUPERUNIFICATION), what would it be?

me- Joy

Can you give us a quote?

me- Dream big!

Lucky people to be guided by such great educators, artist Kevin Kirwan and colleagues.

Abhainn Gharbh

A sheet of sleet beneath my feet,

Roll spit shiver

The rough river,

Always there

Animal

DB turns to me and vomits. She is sitting in the front of the car, head down so fonts of puke pour out of her into the gap between our seats enveloping handbrake and gearbox. I grapple with the handbrake and pull over, hop out into the rain to go to let her out. The door is locked from the inside, so is N’s.

Voice Ukrainian neighbour “is everything ok?”

The car starts rolling down the hill. I run around and hop back in and drive slowly home resigned as DB continues to empty herself out into the carcass of the animal.

Now it’s smell is more appropriate to its name!

Ho!

ROCK SPIRIT KID

Later can I have some right now? -E

B by M

Portrait of B by M

Good bones, good stones

Good stones, good bones

Ice-cream

Distant voice

-Oh God! Oh God help me, I’m going to die!

-Someone please talk to me!

Nurse

-Would you like some ice-cream?

Voice

-Oh you are just the person I wanted to see! Are you a doctor?

Nurse

-No I’m a nurse. Do you need a doctor?

Voice

-No, I don’t think so. What do you think I need?

Nurse

-Ice-cream