Skerries Art Trail: Mary Conroy - Meltdown
Artist Mary Conroy
Title Meltdown
Materials Series of six life-size bronze cast fallen ice cream cones
Dimensions: Approx. 16cm x 12cm x 12cm
Locations 1 – Harbour wall – across from the café ‘Goat in the Boat’
2 – On the wall beside the steps heading down from Harbour Road onto Skerries North Strand
3 – At the top of the steps facing the sea behind the RNLI Lifeboat Station
4 – Under the Mountains of Mourne information sign
5 – On a ledge at the back at the Skerries Playground at Red Island
6 – On top of a bollard on the laneway between Harbour Road and Skerries South Strand
Mary Conroy’s project sees a collection of life-size bronze cast dropped ice cream cones, or 99s, discreetly placed around Skerries harbour and surrounds.
The objects are found in Skerries in places where people might stop along the walking trails – on the seafront, near information signs or at the playground.
Artist's Comment: “These sculptures take the 99 from its classic form to familiar sight - the sad but common case of the dropped ice-cream. The sense of recognition we experience when we see the lost cone on the ground is a communal experience. Here, the dropped ice-cream cone symbolises empathy and commonality.
Mary Conroy
Mary Conroy is an interdisciplinary artist working between Kilkenny and Limerick, Ireland. Her practice incorporates social practice methodologies such as participation, co-production and collaboration. This is explored in parallel within a focus on materials and materiality using a variety of making processes. Mary received an B.Des in Ceramics and an MA in Social Practice from Limerick School of Art and Design.
Mary often works with existing communities of interest to create outdoor site-specific work through workshops, which explore connections to the local environment. She also works as a freelance educator and artist and is currently employed as a Lecturer in Limerick School of Art and Design.
Recent projects have included works made from Found Clay (What Are You Made of Folkestone? Folkestone, UK, 2021), Soap (The Feminist Supermarket, Ormston House, Limerick 2021), Ceramic (Portfolio Critical Selection, Design & Crafts Council, Ireland 2021), Porcelain with Beach Sand (An Urgent Enquiry, Fingal County Council, Dublin 2019), Eco-printing (Memory of Water, Levadia, Greece, 2019), Clay Paint (Street Doves, Athens 2018), amongst others, resulting in both indoor and outdoor mixed media installation.