This small bronze sculpture by Vivienne Roche represents a relatively recent departure in the work of a contemporary Cork sculptor, who, for a number of years, has been more associated with large welded steel work, typically located in Irish town centres, parks and other public areas. Trained at the Crawford School of Art in Cork and initially influenced by David Smith and Anthony Caro, Roche's work in recent years has acquired a more personal idiom and a specific aesthetic, which derives in part from her travels in Scandinavia.

Through this recent work, Roche has revived a Nordic aspect of Irish art - evident in the seventh and eighth centuries AD when Viking motifs were predominant in Irish metalwork and manuscript illumination - but largely subsumed in intervening centuries as Irish artists struggled to come to terms with continental European, British, and, more recently, American influences.

Her recent work is inspired by the material culture of the Vikings, in particular, the beautifully crafted ironwork utensils preserved in many Scandinavian museums. Roche's interest in architecture and engineering (deriving in part from her father, who designed many bridges in Ireland in the 1960s and '70s) is evident in the adaptation of architectural ironwork - seen in Gothenburg and other cities - in her latest bronzes. A form which recurs is the bell, and this again, while presented in a resolutely contemporary sculptural idiom, has resonances of an ancient Irish monastic tradition. There is also a strong personal iconography in Roche's work, which relates to her own life and experience and which prevents her work from becoming academic or impersonal. This is clearly expressed by the artist herself:

All my themes are subsumed in my basic concern with duality. The general oppositions on show - male/female, object/ritual, line/mass, steel/bronze, etc. - express my need to unify something that is fragmented. Some kind of fusion of self with world. A spiritual need, very simple and largely inexplicable.

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Lit. - O'Regan, 1990 / O'Regan, 1991