A CURIOUS BOX OF CURIOSITY FOR MR. O

Graham Gingles

A Curious Box of Curiosity for Mr. O

Mixed media wall sculpture, wood and glass box construction

H 65 cm x W 41 cm x D 26 cm / H 25.59 in x W 16.14 in x D 10.24 in

This artwork is Unique

Certificate of Authenticity included

Every artwork travels protected with the same care with which it was chosen.

Graham Gingles (b. 1943, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland) is one of Ireland’s most distinguished and singular sculptors, internationally renowned for the intimate, enigmatic boxed constructions he has been creating since the early 1970s. He studied painting and silversmithing at the Belfast College of Art before continuing his training at Hornsey College of Art and the British School at Rome, where he held an Arts Council of Northern Ireland scholarship in 1980–81. Working almost entirely by hand, he builds meticulously crafted, wall-hung wood and glass boxes that hold miniature theatrical worlds, a single piece sometimes taking up to a year to complete.

A Curious Box of Curiosity for Mr. O belongs to a body of work in which Gingles frequently addresses his enclosed worlds to an unnamed, initialed figure, an anonymous “Mr.” who stands in for the viewer, the collector, or perhaps the artist himself observing his own creation from a distance. True to its title, the piece leans into the register of the cabinet of curiosities, presenting its contents as a private collection of objects, symbols and small enigmas arranged for someone else’s discovery, an invitation to look closely at what has been gathered and why.

To collect A Curious Box of Curiosity for Mr. O is to become, in effect, Mr. O yourself: the intended recipient of a meticulously built private world, offered by an artist whose singular craftsmanship has placed his work in institutional company that includes the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Ulster Museum. It is a piece that rewards the same close, patient looking that went into making it.