Beschreibung:

UNTITLED Tony O'Malley (b.1962)
Medium: sculpted from a single cedar tree Dimensions: 594 by 165cm., 234 by 65in. Price on request. The sculpture is in the grounds of a private house in the Mid West of Ireland and may be viewed strictly by appointment. O’Malley was born in Ireland in 1962. He grew up in the cou... untry on a farm in Co. Tipperary. His father was somewhat of an inventor and whenever he could spare the time he would be making something unusual, like a bicycle powered catamaran riverboat for example. He was also a keen photographer and maker of home movies. Following his father’s example Tony was making things in the workshop at an early age. Farm life required a multi-skilled approach. He attended Rockwell College, Co. Tipperary, and at the age of sixteen he left school to work on his godmother’s stud farm. A year later he travelled to France where he stayed with his cousin, the painter Liam O’Malley. Later he moved to London where he took up work as a photographer’s assistant with Jon Harris in Kensington. While there, he also worked evenings in Sadler’s Wells contemporary dance theatre. In the early 1980s he returned to the family home and began organic farming. At the age of twenty one, as he puts it himself, “I fell in love and spontaneously began making small steel sculptures shaped to organic forms”. At the same time the internationally recognised sculptor, David Nash came to execute a commission just a few miles from his home. Nash invited him to help and with this exchange he began to look at the world in a new way, through the making of sculpture. In 1986, a trip to Vancouver Island, Canada, brought new hope through experiencing the culture of first nation people and their art. Returning to Ireland, it wasn’t for another three years that he finally decided to become a professional artist with the unexpected popularity of an earth goddess entitled Resurrection which he exhibited in the local town during Easter, 1989. In 1994 he travelled to France to take part in the `Eurosculpture’ symposium. In the following year he was awarded an important commission for Amnesty International in conjunction with Dublin Corporation. Further trips to France and Germany opened up the possibility of moving to continental Europe. In 1998 he and his family moved to Granada, Spain, to live and work. This was partly sponsored by the George Campbell Memorial award (in conjunction with the Arts Council of Ireland, creating artistic links between Irish and Spanish culture). Unfortunately the exercise was unsustainable and he returned to Ireland where he received a commission from the Mater Hospital, Dublin. Since then O’Malley has been commissioned to create many works for local authorities and other institutions more