Cormac Boydell

Cormac Boydell was born in Dublin, trained there as a geologist, and then worked in the Australian Bush for four years before settling in 1972 in Allihies at the end of the Beara Peninsular in County Cork. 

He has worked as a full-time professional artist since 1983. His hands are the only tools he uses, he makes his own colours from earth minerals, and all his works are experimental and original.

He is represented in public collections in Ireland, and is included in numerous private collections.

He says of his work,

I value my connection to the wild landscape that surrounds me. Whilst I often use as my starting point my sketches and images from mythology and memory, the completed ceramic results from the consideration of form, line, texture, and colour, and my response to the uncertainties of the ceramic process. Thus of my work is a result of many edits and re-firings. I use clay for its close connection to the earth and I create the colours to reflect the colours in crystals and rocks. Hence coppers reflect either malachite or azurite, chrome combined with lead reflects crocoite, and so on.