Secret Station - Cardiff, Wales, UK
Posted by: Superted
N 51° 29.569 W 003° 08.052
30U E 490683 N 5704638
Secret Station is an abstract sculpture by Eilis O' Connell and is situated to the western entrance to Cardiff Bay in the Tremorfa area of the city.
Waymark Code: WMGWYM
Location: South Wales, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 04/18/2013
Views: 2
The sculpture consists of two twelve meter tall cones with wavy metal bars on top.
The title of the sculpture comes from a poem by Seamus Heaney called The Diviner.
This bronze sculpture engages directly with Cardiff's industrial past. The artist's brief was to provide a gateway work of scale and significance to mark the eastern entrance to the bay. O'Connell, an award-winning Irish artist, looked to the 19th century to the triumph of steam power and the emergence of Cardiff as a centre of industrial excellence. This sculpture celebrates the age of steam power with its intermittent hiss of steam (although I am unsure if this aspect of the sculpture is still operating. I certainly didn't hear a hiss during my visit). Her sculpture reminds us of the present with its hi-tech fluorescent polymer lighting.
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The artist, Eilis O' Connell was born in Derry, N. Ireland in 1953. She studied at the Crawford School of Art, Cork. (1970 - 74), Massachusetts College of Art, Boston ( 1974-1975) and Crawford School of Art ( 1975-77 ) where she received the only award for Distinction in Sculpture that year. She spends her time between Cork, Ireland and London, England.
Source: www.sculpture.org.uk/artist/61/eil%C3%ADs-oconnell