Odyssey of Self
Tina O’Connell
Chainsaw Carving, Exhibition & Artist Talk
Artist Statement
Odyssey of Self
My practice is rooted in the Burren, a limestone landscape that has shaped my body, memory, and imagination since childhood. It is both playground and archive—holding personal and generational histories that inform my sculptural language.
Working primarily in wood, I create figurative, narrative sculptures that explore motherhood, identity, and care. Raised in a family of makers, I carry a tactile inheritance; storytelling is embedded in the grain, and making becomes a way of thinking through memory. My process is intuitive, often revealing subconscious connections between past and present.
Through humour and close attention to everyday life, I reflect on the emotional complexities of motherhood—devotion, guilt, exhaustion, and love. Informed by feminist and psychoanalytic perspectives, my work gives form to internal dialogue and repetition, inviting audiences to recognise something of themselves within these shared, intimate experiences.
I am currently expanding my practice to explore movement, sound, and time-based processes, developing kinetic and multi-sensory sculptural installations that more fully express the cyclical and psychological dimensions of motherhood.
Conceptual Statement
This project brings together live making and sculptural display to explore the visibility, labour, and cultural significance of women within coastal communities, specifically in Caherciveen. Over the course of the festival, I will create a chainsaw-carved wooden sculpture of a female figure selling fish—an homage to the often underrepresented women who have historically contributed to the fishing economy through both visible and invisible labour.
The act of carving on-site is central to the work. Using a chainsaw—traditionally associated with male-dominated practices—I aim to challenge assumptions around gender and physical making. The live process invites the public into the creation of the piece, offering transparency, immediacy, and engagement. It also creates an opportunity for young women and girls to witness what is possible: to see strength, skill, and creative agency embodied in real time.
The finished sculpture will sit alongside pre-existing works that explore themes of motherhood, labour, and identity. Together, these works form a dialogue between past and present, personal and collective memory, and the everyday experiences of women navigating work, family, and selfhood.
Humour and familiarity—key elements in my practice—will be present in the character of the fish seller, grounding the work in lived experience while making it accessible to a broad audience. The piece aims to foster recognition, spark conversation, and honour the resilience and contribution of women in coastal life.
Ultimately, this work seeks to carve space—both physically and symbolically—for women’s stories, labour, and presence within public and cultural landscapes.
© Tina O’Connell
Title: 'She Carries Them Home'
Medium: Beech Wood from Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church
One of my earliest memories is sitting between my grandfather's legs in a currach while my father rowed us across to Inis Oírr for the Island Games. The sea has always been woven through my family history. Years later, I spent hours in a small caravan behind our house helping to process crab claws. Those experiences made me wonder about the generations of women and children before us whose hands quietly sustained the fishing industry.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Cahersiveen was a thriving fishing port. Trains arrived at the quay to carry barrels of salted mackerel to London, yet behind this bustling trade were women whose work was rarely recorded. They salted fish, packed barrels, carried heavy loads and worked long hours in harsh conditions, sometimes barefoot, for little pay. Their labour helped build the industry, yet their stories remain largely absent from history. Reading Mary McGillicuddy's research on the mackerel fishing industry in south-west Ireland, with particular reference to Cahersiveen, deepened my understanding of the women whose labour underpinned its success, yet whose stories have largely been left untold.
The small figure in this sculpture reflects that absence. She is deliberately overshadowed by the barrel, a reminder of how easily women's contribution can disappear beneath the scale of an industry dominated by men. She carries a shallow bowl of fish carved in the form of a currach, echoing the seine boats that once worked these waters. The bowl is less about the fish than what it asks her to carry. It becomes a quiet symbol of responsibility, resilience and hope—a weight that feels both personal and universal. She could be any woman: a mother, a daughter, a worker, or even Mother Nature herself, carrying the fragile balance between abundance and survival.
She stands on a narrow ledge that recalls the cliffs of the Kerry coastline. The natural void within the timber became part of the work, suggesting the sea caves carved into the rocks. Rather than carving away the absence, I allowed it to remain—a reminder of the missing stories of the women whose labour shaped this place.
All photos by Tina O'Connell
About the artist
Tina O’Connell is a visual artist based in North Clare, working primarily through sculpture as a form of visual storytelling.
As a mature student, she completed a degree in Fine Art at LSAD and is currently pursuing an MA in Fine Art. Her practice explores themes of motherhood, memory, and identity through storytelling, humour, and material experimentation. Working primarily with wood, alongside concrete and mixed media, she creates narrative-driven sculptural works that reflect domestic life and familial relationships. Tina was awarded a solo exhibition at Custom House Studios in 2026 through a competitive open call. She has exhibited in both group and solo contexts, including at Limerick City Gallery of Art, where her work is part of the permanent collection. Her work is also included in the Limerick Mayor’s Collection and in private collections. In 2024, she received the prestigious Global Travel Award, with curator Aoife Ruane describing her as “a genuine artistic explorer”. She is a recipient of the Clare Arts Office Artist Award (2025 and 2026). She has undertaken a residency at Tyrone Guthrie Centre (2026), and RHA Aras Eanna (2024). Her work has been featured in Irish Arts Review and in Visual Artists Ireland MiniVAN (August 2024).