These sculptures are part of Nuala's Radiolaria series, inspired by the regular grid-like structure of the subspecies Phaedodaria, depicted in the microscopic drawings of Ernst Haeckel published in Art Forms in Nature (1904). Haeckel described more than 4,000 species of radiolarians, unicellular organisms collected from the ocean bed. Painstakingly assembled from thousands of handcrafted pieces, the sculptures were fired at high temperatures.
Nuala O’Donovan is fascinated by structural patterns in nature, particularly irregularities and imperfections that tell a story, such as a growth on a ...
