EDMOND BYRNE

Edmond Byrne first studied glass at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. He makes glass works that occupy a space where strong volume and geometry meet a fluid lyricism. Byrne works primarily in the vessel form, not for domestic comfort but because of an elemental, symbolic attraction. Sometimes his work takes a single shape that is characteristic of heritage Chinese ceramics, although he adds grooved indents to the walls in a clearly contemporary manner. He says that he likes to work across the notion of time, where his art objects 'have a resonance from the past'. Byrne has an affinity for the series, too. Sturdy uplifting cylinders and elegant tall forms are grouped together so that their ridged and striated sides create dancing rhythms of reflected and interior light across a sometimes soft-orange, amber or pink-red hue palette. Sometimes the coloured glass seems almost to disappear - like a passing shadow - and sometimes its deep, chasm-grey hints at the geology of basalt and the idea of deeper time.