Biography

 

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Alva Gallagher is an Irish sculptor whose practice explores the tension between permanence and ephemerality through a materially driven inquiry into form, memory and elemental presence. Her work is concerned with how bodies, both human and natural, occupy space, and how their traces persist, dissolve or transform across time. Working primarily in cast glass, bronze, steel and ice, Gallagher constructs sculptural forms that are less representations than translations; the physical outcome of a deeply researched engagement with landscape, surface and the unconscious architecture of loss.

 

Gallagher graduated with distinction from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin Ireland in 2004 and was subsequently awarded a place at the renowned Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, where she began developing her signature approach to sculptural glass as a language of breath, rupture and suspension. She quickly emerged as one of Ireland’s most compelling sculptors and early in her career she was recognized with the 2012 Jim McNaughton/Tilestyle Bursary Award, the first sculptor in Ireland to receive the €10,000 grant, acknowledging the conceptual depth and technical risk in her large-scale public works. That same year, she was pre-selected for the prestigious Threadneedle Prize in London.

 

Her practice matured through solo and group exhibitions in Ireland, the UK, Europe, Japan and the United States. Notably, Gallagher represented Ireland at the European Glass Context Biennale in Bornholm, Denmark (2008) and exhibited with the Royal Society of Marine Artists in London’s Mall Galleries (2012/14/15/16). She exhibited by invitation in Cast at the Wayne Institute of Art Philadelphia and is published in the accompanying book Cast; Art and Objects now available at the MET, NYC. Her sculptural investigations into expressing the bodies life force formally realized through glass and steel have been shown at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, the FE McWilliam Gallery in Northern Ireland and in 2022, Gallagher exhibited at the Seattle Art Fair, with Winston Wächter Fine Art, marking her presence in one of North America’s most significant contemporary art markets. Her critically noted solo exhibitions followed with Icescapes (2023) and Into the Deep (2024) with Winston Wächter Fine Art Seattle / NYC, unveiling a new chapter of artistic evolution; glacial, atmospheric and sculpted by her immersion in the northern landscapes of Canada.

 

Her commissioned work includes “Rise” (2018), a six-meter glass and steel sculpture installed in The Sharp Building in Dublin’s Docklands and recipient of the Jim McNaughton Perpetual Award for Best Commissioning Practice at the 2019 Business to Arts Awards. Rise, composed of hand-blown glass elements held in tensile suspension within a steel armature, articulates Gallagher’s preoccupation with the dynamic equilibrium between fragility and force, a theme that recurs throughout her body of work and her huge light immersive landmark piece PULSE (2023) sited on the River Liffey in Dublin core city centre commissioned by Dublin City Council, Dublin Docklands and Failte Ireland.

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She is represented by Winston Wächter Fine Art Seattle | NYC, the Kildare Gallery Ireland and Elevation Galleries, Canada. She has shown at Saatchi Gallery London; La Gallerie SEMA, Paris; the ECB, Frankfurt, Germany; Mall Galleries, London; European Glass Context Biennale, Denmark representing Ireland with The National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks and at various exhibitions globally in Tokyo, Berlin, Shanghai and The Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China. Alva, ANCAD,  received the first Irish Partner Scholarship to study at Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, USA, was the first recipient of the JimMcNaughton/TileStyle €10,000 Bursary Award, was preselected for the prestigious Columbia Threadneedle Award, London in 2012 and most recently, following an International call, was announced as the winning commissioned artist for The Sharp Building Commission at Hogan Place in Dublin’s core city centre. Her commissioned sculpture installation ‘Rise’ measuring 6 metres by 4 metres in glass and stainless steel with a sophisticated integrated lighting system was unveiled in early January 2019 and then won the Jim McNaughton Perpetual Award for Best Commissioning Practice at the Allianz Business to Arts Awards 2019, the second time Alva has won this Award. Alva recently featured in the 2020 Spring edition of Irish Arts Review and was recently exhibited, by invitation, in the ‘Cast’; Art & Objects exhibition at the Wayne Art Institute, Philadelphia, USA accompanied by ‘Cast’ the critically acclaimed book published by Schiffer Publishing New York featuring Alva’s work and now available at the MET, NYC. 

 

She was awarded the Arts Council of Ireland Covid 19 response Award to develop her project, In a Bubble'. She recently installed a newly commissioned sculpture at the stunning Arthur Cox Building, Dublin, Ireland to commemorate their centenary year. She has shown with Solomon Fine Art Dublin; the RUA Belfast; Art Below, London and recently concluded ‘Ebbs and Remnants’ her Solo Exhibition with the Catherine Hammond Gallery, Ireland.

 

Including having work in State and International Collections such as The National Museum of Ireland Collins Barracks; The Sharp Building Dublin; the OPW; The Deloitte Art Collection; Kelly Group London; AWAS Aviation Ltd; the BMW Art Collection; the MasterCard Art Collection; The iconic 'Gherkin' building in the city of London and the private collection of Lady Dunraven, Alva has just completed a new installation piece for the Four Ferns building in Foxrock, Ireland in stainless steel and glass with integrated RGB fibre optics and has work in private collections throughout Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. She has been published in Modern Painter; Irish Arts Review and the acclaimed International contemporary sculpture book ‘CAST’. Most recently Alva won the Sculpture in Context Award 2018, was shortlisted for the inaugural Merrion Plinth Award 2019, exhibited in the FE McWilliam Open 18 Sculpture by invitation, in the internationally acclaimed ‘Cast’ exhibition 2019 at the Wayne Arts Institute, Philadelphia, USA.