Claire Curneen, 'To Set the Darkness Echoing'

Claire Curneen To Set the Darkness Echoing

Anima Mundi are delighted to present 'To Set the Darkness Echoing’, Claire Curneen's second solo exhibition at the gallery.

Claire Curneen’s iconic sculptures are poignant contemplations on the liminal and precarious nature of the human condition, exploring themes around death, rebirth and the sublime. Universal and profound states of fear, loss, suffering and sacrifice fuse with devotion, desire, wonder and mystery to underlie each intricate, porcelain figure. Their translucent and fragile qualities offer potent, metaphoric abstract narratives. Porcelain, terracotta and black stoneware creates a grounded vulnerability to these works, with dribbles of glaze and flashes of gold to embellish denoted sacred qualities.


INTRODUCTION

Darkness is often imagined as an absence: of light, certainty or understanding. Yet it is equally a place of profound presence. It is where memory lingers after those we love have departed, where grief continues to speak long after language has failed, and where faith exists not as conviction but as the willingness to remain attentive to mystery.

Claire Curneen's sculptures inhabit this contemplative territory, resisting spectacle, choosing instead the quiet authority of stillness. These figures rarely proclaim or perform emotion; rather, they are imbued with it, holding themselves, caught within a moment of grace. It is through an economy of expression that the work attains its remarkable emotional weight. These sculptures do not tell us what or how to feel. Instead, they create a space in which our own experiences of tenderness, loss, hope and longing are gently returned to us... - Joseph Clarke, 2026

BIOGRAPHY

Claire Curneen was born in Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland in 1968 and currently lives and works in Wales, UK. Works have been exhibited internationally and appear in many notable Public collections including the Crafts Council, London; Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead; National Museum & Gallery of Wales, Cardiff; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Manchester City Art Gallery, Manchester; National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, Wales; Cleveland Craft Centre, Middlesbrough; Oldham Art Gallery and Museum, Manchester; York City Art Gallery, York; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Eire; Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick, Eire; Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland; Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece; Clay Studio, Philadelphia, USA; Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Icheon World Ceramic Centre, Gyeonggi-do, Korea; Taipei Ceramics Museum, Taiwan.

Please join us for the launch of Claire Curneen's To Set the Darkness Echoing and Oleksii Shcherbak's The Planet of Giant Grasshoppers on Friday 17th July, 6.30-8.30pm, with artists present.