Earthy pursuits lift the spirit

West Cork-based artist Cormac Boydell, who specialises in ceramics, has an exhibition opening at the Ballymaloe House Grain Store on May 3 as part of Ballymaloe’s Literary Festival of Food and Wine.

Boydell has made 35 new works in clay, mostly plates, on the theme of food and wine, taking inspiration from the illustrations of fruit, game and blancmange in early editions of Mrs Beeton’s cookbooks as well as illustrations from 1,080 Recipes by Simone and Inés Ortega.

Boydell, who studied science and worked as a geologist in the Australian bush for four years before becoming an artist, always had a “grá” for ceramics.