"Tully Park Portal" 2022 Cerrywood, Co Dublin

"Tully Park Portal" 2022

for Cherrywood, Co Dublin, laser cut corten steel.

I have taken the Viking carved designs from the Rathdown stone slabs as an inspirational starting point, and have used their forms and repetitions to create a new composition for the columns. These adaptations are an improvisation on the style as a way of acknowledging the heritage of the site. I have purposely avoided using the symbol of the Christian cross as a decorative element, in recognition of the sensitivity of representing religious iconography outside of the context of a church or graveyard. This design embraces the decorative elements of our distant ancestors, not just our Viking ancestors but our neolithic ancestors as well. Stone Age artworks, most notably at Newgrange, use concentric circles, crescent moons, straight and arcing lines similar to those seen on the Rathdown slabs.

Image Details

  • Tully Park Portal 2022
  • Detail of design on portal
  • Detail of text on portal
  • View from the footpath
  • Proposal image