Aoife Bambury - Artist of the Month, December 2022

Aoife Bambury is a Kildare based contemporary visual artist and sculptor. She has studied at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and at Crawford college in Cork. Aoife’s current practice is focused on modernist sculpture, using bronze as the core material. Through her process, and working of the bronze, her work can take on the appearance of different materials, and at first glance could be manufactured from vinyl or another plastic.

Utilising her interest in popular culture, pop art and designer toy movements, Aoife's work includes abstracted elements from the animal world. Her work is mostly connected to the figurative and is intended to convey reactionary responses connected to our subconscious, reflecting how she perceives and attempts to make personal sense of changing cultural habits, and the world around her.

‘Muse' is part of the Arts council of Northern Ireland collection. It is a bronze, seated sculpture, on a white marble base. It is one of a series of bunny sculptures, with a shiny, lacquered finish, representing the image, or shell that we present to the outside world. The highly polished, reflective nature of the finish references how one hopes to reflect the other's gaze, and to mask our more vulnerable inner states. The sculpture was completed in January 2021 and it was shown for the first time in RUA 140th Annual Exhibition 2021.

Further information about Aoife and her work can be found at www.aoifebambury.com