Duthain Dealbh which means "Fleeting Sculpture" in Gaelic is a partnership of three Irish sculptors Daniel Doyle, Niall Magee and Alan Magee who create the most amazing sculptures with sand, snow or ice.
The trio of artists were in Dublin recently where they were commissioned to create a series of sculptures on the theme of Gulliver's Travels for Dublin's "One City, One Book" festival. In its third year, the project is designed to encourage everyone in the city to read the same book during the month of April each year.
The artists met while studying Fine Art Sculpture in DIT Dublin, Ireland. They have been working as a team for over ten years and have displayed their work at festivals all across the globe.
Alan Magee and Daniel Doyle recently returned from an Ice sculpture competition in Jelgava, Latvia where they were awarded first prize for the second year running. This year their sculpture entitled 'Why are we here?' was a depiction of the humanity between two opposing soldiers in the midst of war.
The origins of their involvement in this artistic area came from an invitation to participate in an International Sand Sculpture event which arrived at the university in 1993.
After starting to use ephemeral materials they soon realised that these materials presented different possibilities than other more classical materials for sculpturing. They could create structures quicker and to a larger scale, they were also cheaper to create.
"We find ephemeral materials very interesting, I don't know exactly why but it seems to be something we have fallen into that we enjoy doing, probably because of the performance aspect of the scale of sculpture that one is able to create" Daniel Doyle told the Epoch Times.
He continued, "With traditional materials it would be harder to create such large scale sculptures but the drawback was the transient nature of these new materials. We realise that 'Nothing lasts forever', however we can put a time on how long our sculptures last and the photograph that we take at the end becomes the piece, so we haven't lost the piece as it remains in our memory and we have also documented it."
Daniel explained how destruction was a part of their creative process, the team were also responsible for the removal of their art work when the time came.
"So when this Gulliver's time is up I will have to organise knocking it down and shovelling it into a truck where it will be recycled into a house or a road", he said.
"This is kind of a strange experience having to destroy something that you have put so much work into, this is part of the process and something we have known from the start, so in some ways it is nice to be in control of the whole process to the finish."
Daniel felt that this kind of art form engaged the public more, "people enjoy to see a creative process going on, it works for all ages, they enjoy watching an artist at work, art in broad daylight."
He added, "It is a different way of looking at sculpting. A sculpture created in a studio is unveiled for the first time at the opening of an exhibition. However our work is always on display more so unfinished than when it is completed so this demystifies and also gives an insight into the life of a sculpture and how it is made."
The guys work as a group for the summer months abroad going from festival to festival doing sand sculptures. Each member also has their own solo projects.
They have recently set up a studio in Dublin to create sculptures from ice. They think that this form of art might become more popular in Ireland in the future.
Daniel is also currently working on a short film, the transitory theme continues on his film too, "The ephemeral nature of film exists too, it doesn't really exist until you put it in your DVD player and watch it, once you turn it off it's gone."
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