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Alva Gallagher examines the fluidity and stasis of water and ice through lifelike sculptures. Drawing upon ever-shrinking arctic glaciers and frozen lakes in Canada, Gallagher manipulates glass, steel, resin, and bronze to capture transient imagery. Her work blurs between representation and abstraction, as bottomless seas and crashing waves conflate with hardened, once-molten materials that draw attention to their own form. Gallagher invites the viewer to peer into the oceanic depths implied in her work, freezing elements of nature threatened by climate change.
Gallagher’s body of work also includes glass blown sculptures that contrastingly rise into the atmosphere, suspended like weightless bubbles slowly reaching equilibrium. In these largescale installations, the hidden depths of the ocean are replaced with transparent, ethereal forms exposed in their entirety. Her sculptures maintain a focus on the fleeting components of nature, emphasizing the fragility that comes from manmade intervention in the earth. She invites the viewer to slow down and marvel at a surreal stillness that often passes us by.
Alva Gallagher is a Canadian based sculptor whose installations have been featured in The National Museum of Ireland Collins Barracks, the ‘Gherkin’ building in London, the Arthur Cox building in Dublin, and the BMW Art Collection, among many others. She has been exhibited in Ireland, Canada, Japan, Germany, and France. She was recently awarded the Arts Council of Ireland Covid 19 Response Award, and has been announced as the winning artist for the Dublin Dockland Light Commission in Dublin’s core City Center.
