Rachel Joynt RHA

Born in Caherciveen in 1966, Rachel grew up in Dublin and graduated with a Degree in Sculpture from National College Of Art & Design in 1989.

Joynt’s work is predominantly site-specific; this goes for both her sand installations and public artworks. Her installations include ‘Selene’ at Project Art Centre in ’93 and ‘Feed’ at Temple Bar Galleries in ’99. Her public artworks include ‘People’s Island”88, ‘Mothership’ at Dunlaoghaire seafront in ’99, ‘Starboard’ alongside the River Lagan, Belfast, 2001 and ‘Noah’s Egg’ outside the Vetinary building, UCD, 2004.

Title: Noah’s Egg, UCD 2005

Working in both gallery and public art, permanence and the transient are reoccurring themes, her use of sand, light, glass, bronze and cast iron underline this. The actual material itself can play an integral part in the concept as in her series of recent pieces using a thin screen of sand to examine a stratified landscape, scan or graph.

“Capturing layers of sand behind glass allows me to enjoy its physical and metaphorical qualities and its interplay somewhere between solid matter and liquid behavior.”

Title: Between Worlds I

Medium: Giclee Print

For Joynt, scale is also important, transforming our normal viewpoint. Using different magnifications be it macro or micro, she allows the subject to take on a new presence.

Some of her public artworks are highly visible such as the sea urchin ’Mothership’ or ‘Noah’s Egg’ (a 3.5 meter long bronze egg textured with various animal sperm and perforated with small holes. When viewed through the eyehole this creates a celestial space inside) A large number can also be discovered underfoot, these include ‘Starboard’ in Belfast and ‘ArcHive’ at Pearse St library in Dublin. Both these works use cast glass housed within a cast iron frame and then lit from below.

Her most recent commissions include ‘Freeflow’ a glass cobble, illuminated work sited intermittently underfoot from IFSC to the Point Theater in Dublin, ‘Love All’ a bronze globe in Templeogue village and ‘Guiding Star’ a large cast iron starfish as if dancing over the harbour wall at Port Oriel fishing harbour in Co Louth.

“For me, a successful public artwork needs to have a sense of place, a freshness, some intrigue & playfulness, a bit like a frozen moment from a daydream.”Rachel Joynt