Cecilia Moore

Cecilia Moore is an artist maker based in Dublin, Ireland. She holds a Masters and a First Class Honours Degree in Metal Design from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. Previously she graduated in silversmithing from Birmingham School of Jewellery, going on to study dinanderie in Paris for a year, and two years at the Firestation Studios in Dublin studying sculptural techniques.

Her work has been selected for numerous national and international exhibitions, and is in public and private collections, including the National Museum of Ireland, the State Collection of Ireland, the National Irish Visual Arts Library and  the Ulster Museum. She has completed several public art commissions and been selected for Design and Crafts Council of Ireland’s “Critical Selection” from 2017- 2023.

In 2018 Cecilia won the Golden Fleece Award a major national prize for visual artists in Ireland; in 2016 she won the Royal Dublin Society Award for Silversmithing and Metalwork; and a Thomas Dammann Jnr. Memorial Trust Award for travel and research.

Cecilia's current work combines all the elements of her training in sculpture and metalwork to focus on “raising” an ancient, near-obsolete process of hammering a flat disc of metal to create hollow sculptural forms. It could perhaps be produced using mechanical means, but this slow, physically demanding technique becomes a ritual between the metal, hammer and maker and is the deliberate act of art-making that is central to this work.

Pieces are formed from copper, bronze, copper-based alloys, silver and often incorporates found objects and used metal parts. Surfaces are textured by a variety of methods from etching, to engraving to hammering pieces on pitted welding tables. The forms and parts always seem to wander from their initial sketched design, before decisions can be pinned down and the parts fitted and soldered together, the colour patinas too evolve and change. This method of working intuitively is far slower, and perhaps why each piece is unique, but also why each piece is a joy to make and own.

See Cecilia's work in our feature on Metals

See Cecilia Moore in Our Collecting Craft Feature