Both turning raw natural materials into pieces that juxtapose delicacy and solidity, Stephen O’Briain and Michelle Byrne work with wood and stone, respectively, in their adjacent workshops.
Away from the thrum of city life in the foothills of Mount Leinster sit two neighbouring workshops: Michelle Byrne’s sculpture studio and Stephen O’Briain’s furniture workroom. A couple brought together by their shared creative spirit, Michelle and Stephen have been mastering their respective crafts for decades, and though their disciplines may differ, there are many parallels to be drawn in the dualities of their work.
Since graduating from GMIT College of Art & Design in 1992, Michelle has been treading a line between deceptive delicacy and weighty rigidity with her sand-blown limestone, steel, and bronze sculptures. Working on both public and private commissions, Michelle’s work nods to the ancient Irish tradition of stone carving while echoing the ever-evolving nature of the world around us.
Having spent ten years working in the Dublin Docklands working with scrap metal and found objects, Michelle’s art shifted when she moved to the Carlow countryside. “Looking out over the Blackstairs Mountains, we get to observe the cycles and really see the patterns of the land,” she tells me. “I’m interested in the fact that so much of what we see in the natural landscape is man-made. Stone walls, hawthorn hedges – it’s all created, it’s man drawing lines upon the land.”
Having long been enamoured with maps as a 2D artform, Michelle looks upon these patterns as a shared language we all speak, an interest in our surrounding environment that occupies a space in our collective consciousness. Reversing the process of headstone masonry, Michelle covers stone with rubber, carves out the intricate detailing with a scalpel, and uses a sandblaster to chisel deep.
“My work takes these heavy materials and gives them the appearance of lightness. I love the idea of taking a material and pushing it to a different possibility, a different wave. It’s ancient, but it’s modern; it’s light, but it’s heavy.”
For Stephen, a furniture maker who combines traditional skills with modern techniques, his work meets at the intersection of sculptural design and functional use. Fluid lines and meticulous details distinguish his creations, and these design solutions are instinctual, simplistic and complex all at once.
Trained as a fine art painter, Stephen decided to veer away from this solitary lifestyle towards cabinetry: the artform’s interactive qualities and constrained freedom appealed to him endlessly. From growing up watching his “gifted amateur” grandfather building furniture by hand, to seeing his mother take up cabinetry in her mid-fifties, Stephen approaches his craft with skilful precision and artistic experimentation.
“My work leans into sculpture because I’m interested in the forms of furniture. Not just its functional use, but the shapes it makes and the negative spaces in between. Furniture tends to be made to be looked at from a particular angle, not to be walked around and looked at from a broad range of perspectives.”
Echoing Michelle’s sentiments on the importance of place, Stephen tells me that, initially, he didn’t think that their setting would be that important to him – he didn’t even want to have a window in his workshop. After some persuasion from Michelle, Stephen now spends his days looking out across the mountains, a view that manages to clear his mind of creative blockages and add to his own ideation.
“It’s so relaxing to look out and see the change in the light in this constantly evolving environment. I don’t think I would be able to work in an enclosed space now. We’re so lucky with this location; we’re up quite high, and that sense of space offers a feeling of freedom; we’re never boxed in.”
Working exclusively with solid timber, Stephen uses trusted hand tools and modern machinery, a combination that strikes just the right balance for this furniture maker. Tending towards making miniature models in order to find the right way forward, Stephen is always extending his portfolio of work. In fact, Michelle tells me that there’s not a scrap piece of paper or surface in their home – shower doors, envelopes, receipts – that’s not covered in a sketch or doodle by one of them.
Since their first meeting in a Cabinteely workshop all those years ago, Stephen and Michelle have been working in one another’s eyeline for over 20 years now. “It’s like osmosis with the two of us,” Michelle says. “We feed off each other, creatively. It’s so lovely to have someone to spin off. There’s an awful lot that I couldn’t do without Stephen.”
Each putting the finishing touches on new work that veers in a slightly new direction – Stephen expanding his existing Origami range and pushing it a little further, Michelle working on a new collection that involves inlaying stone with a jesmonite plaster that’s got infinite potential – this creative couple find inspiration just about everywhere.
Photography: Al Higgins
