About the Artist

Marie Foley (b.1959)

Born 1959, Kanturk, Ireland. Born in Cork in 1959, she studied Sculpture at the Crawford College of Art in Cork, Goldsmiths College in London and Cardiff College of Art. Awarded an M.A. and a National Diploma in Art with Distinction. Her sculptures comprise of elements which are carved in wood, modeled in porcelain and with additional hand-worked or salvaged elements in metal and stone. Her language is one of symbolic form, which becomes a vehicle for the spiritual in nature. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Ireland, England, Wales, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Canada, USA and Japan. She was the first Irish artist to have a solo Exhibition in the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Public commissions include Kilkenny Castle, The Office of Public Works at 51 St. Stephen’s Green, a sculpture for National Universities of Ireland presentation to President Mary Robinson, Cothú Awards and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. She has received various Arts Council awards. Other awards include an International Ceramic Award, a Canada Council award and The New Horizons Award from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.