Adam's Important Irish Art 25th September 2019

20 16 ROWAN GILLESPIE (B.1953) Peace II Bronze, 78cm high (30¾’’) Signed, inscribed and dated 1999 underneath the base Female figures are quite prominent in Gillespie’s work, with his depiction of the body often acting as a celebration of female liberty and the vitality of life. They are not treated in the same way as a classical sculpture in which the female form was often depicted as an object of beauty. Instead Gillespie strives to create thoughtful expressions of the free-spirited and independent nature of modern women. Freedom is a constant thread in Gillespie’s work, something his sculptures seem to always be striving towards, whether they are scaling the side of a building, Aspiration (1995) or perched on a window ledge, Birdy (1997). His figures seem to affect an act of defiance in the face of gravity. While Gillespie’s sculptures are often struggling under the weight, literal and metaphorical, of the base, elemental forces of life there is also a lightness, a joy found within his depictions of the human form. There is a visual link between the outstretched arms in Peace II and the Blackrock Dolmen (1987), although on this occasion the figures are not supporting the heavy weight of the stone. Instead with their arms outstretched, reaching upwards towards an imaginary light, one is reminded of his respective large-scale public commissions in Italy and Dublin, L’Eta della donna (2009) and The Age of Freedom (1992). On both occasions the figures stand, similar to the present work, naked, offering some form of thanksgiving to the sun. The two figures in Peace II , seem to grow upwards from the same source, their bodies intertwined with one another. It is an expression of gratitude, a gesture of sublimation and hope. While he is known for his emotionally arresting Famine memorial, here there is a delicacy to the treatment of the material which seems to hark back to his earlier investigations into the human form. The finish of the bronze in this work is the antithesis of the cracking, raw patinas of his Famine figures. However, once again he has created a visual as well as physical connection to the raised arms of his Jubilant Man (2007) sculpture in Ireland’s Park, Toronto, who upon safe arrival in Canada is utterly overcome with emotion. Niamh Corcoran, September 2019 € 15,000 - 20,000