Alan Meredith’s work exists at the meeting point of sculpture, architecture, and honouring organic material. Across this new body of sculptural turned vessels, the Irish artist continues his deeply intuitive exploration of wood as both medium and collaborator, creating forms that feel simultaneously ancient and distinctly contemporary.
 

Centred around a single burred elm tree discovered near his home and studio in County Laois, this exhibition unfolds as an intimate conversation between artist and material. The elm — marked by time, weather, growth, and irregularity — becomes the origin point for a series of vessels that reveal the extraordinary complexity hidden within the tree’s grain and structure. Meredith approaches the timber not simply as raw material, but as a living archive, enabling and revealing its character and history to guide the evolution of each piece.
 

Originally trained as an architect at University College Dublin, Meredith’s practice emerged from a fascination with the relationship between structure, movement, and form. Through traditional processes of turning, carving, steaming, and bending native hardwoods, he creates works that appear to twist, fold, and unfurl under their own internal momentum. His signature ribbon-like gestures and fluid silhouettes challenge conventional perceptions of wood, pushing the material toward remarkable states of tension, delicacy, and movement.
 

What distinguishes Meredith’s work is his rare ability to balance precision with spontaneity. Architectural discipline underpins every curve and proportion, yet the organic nature of the timber remains ever-present. In these vessels, polished surfaces and dramatic contours coexist with burr formations, fissures, and wild figuring — traces of the tree’s lived experience that are neither concealed nor controlled, but honoured.
 

Meredith is widely regarded as one of Ireland’s leading contemporary makers exploring the expressive possibilities of wood. His work spans sculpture, functional design, and public commissions, and has been exhibited internationally, including at Collect, Somerset House, London; Révélations at the Grand Palais, Paris; Salon Art + Design, New York; and the Irish National Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale in collaboration with Cotter & Naessens Architects. His works are held in significant public and private collections including University College Dublin, Galway City Museum, and the Irish Embassy in Helsinki as part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade International Contemporary Collection of Irish Design & Craft.
 

When first encountering Meredith’s work, one is immediately struck by his profound affinity for wood and his deep understanding of its sculptural potential. By transforming fallen trees through cutting, carving, turning, and steaming, he reveals forms of extraordinary fluidity and tactility. Each piece carries echoes of the tree’s centuries-long growth, preserving within its contours a sense of movement, resilience, and quiet monumentality.
 

In this exhibition, the burred elm becomes more than subject matter; it becomes collaborator, witness, and storyteller. Through Meredith’s hands, the tree is granted a new life — one that continues to evolve through form, surface, and the intimate experience of looking.
 

This exhibition is in collaboration with Culture Ireland.

Alan Meredith will be attending the opening of Ulmus on Saturday June 13th at 3pm.  We hope you can join us to celelbrate this reamarkable exhibtion.