Sculpture wins inaugural college of surgeons art award

The winner of the inaugural Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Art Award is Remco de Fouw, for his sculpture Random Access Memory V. The piece was chosen from a shortlist of five works in this year's Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) annual exhibition.

De Fouw wins €5,000, the RCSI silver medal and a €10,000 commission for a new work, which will be housed in the college, which is constructing a new facility in Dublin.

The award was presented by RCSI president Declan J Magee at an event at the RHA yesterday attended also by RHA president, Mick O’Dea.

The winning piece, de Fouw said, “uses the very basic elemental principle of fibre optic . . . It demystifies the technological buzzwords of fibre-optic communication”.

De Fouw is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design. Much of his work is for public commissions, including Perpetual Motion, made with Rachel Joynt, which is located at the Naas turn on the M7.

The other shortlisted works were The Wild Swans at Coole by John Behan; Une Femme et Un Homme by Liam Belton; Folded Triangle/Circle by Joy Gerrard, in collaboration with One Off Design; and Soft-Kin by Richard Gorman.

The award, supported by The Irish Times, will run for at least another five years. The jury was made up of representatives from the RHA, the RCSI and The Irish Times.