Aleana Egan - At intervals, while turning

Drawing plays a significant role in Egan's work, with a sketchbook providing a repository for the noting down of ideas and experimentation with forms that undergo many changes as they are transformed into collages, sculptures or films. Ideas are triggered through observation of her surroundings, be it the Irish landscape or the space in which she makes or exhibits work, and through memories of childhood experiences and works of literature.

Her works evolve through a series of stages, with each successive layer gaining a density until the final form emerges, coherent and cogent, yet insistently resisting the stamp of the finite. The meandering, sensuous line that dominates her sculptures, films and drawings suggests a condition of flux.

Egan often works with very crude materials such as cardboard, plaster and concrete, and her sculptures are painted with carefully mixed, matt and muted colours of greys and blues. There is a fine tension and taut balance in all her work regardless of material or position in space. Her hanging hand-made sculptures made of cardboard and filler appear utterly opposite to the hard line and tension of the steel sculptures.

Her new 4 metre high steel sculpture titled Binet's addition, is based on Emile Zola's novel Au Bonheur des Dames an observation of one of the most famous department stores 'La Bon Marche' of the French architect René Binet, who created the iron-framed elevator for Parisian shops.

In a new work Outfit, Egan literally photographs her models, mostly friends and family, from the neck down wearing a variety of outfits. Standing with their back or front to the camera, these are objective recordings: each figure stands motionless in the same light and same conditions. It is the shape of the form, the colour and visual composition that interests Egan. She does not wish to tell stories or make grand gestures but to find appropriate forms to render psychological states and experiences.

Aleana Egan
At intervals, while turning