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Remco de Fouw RHA

Remco de Fouw is a multidisciplinary artist based in the south east of Ireland. Primarily known for his public art commissions, he is also noted for his photograms, derived from a unique technique devised by the artist as far back as 1990. The artist works across a broad range of disciplines including stone carving, glass elements, installation and a combination of manipulated materials and found objects.

Remco is a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy Ireland, recipient of prestigious awards and his work is included in many collections.

Remco de Fouw RHA with the Voice in his workshop

The Artist's Work 

In the work of Remco de Fouw, one is presented with the creativity of somebody who brings us an interpretation of the world unique to his character and life’s journey. Carissa Farrell suggests in her essay on the artist and his work, that every one of us is hard-wired from childhood in how we understand the world and our place in it, before we are moulded by formal education. In many respects Remo de Fouw’s work is a testimony.

The son of post-war immigrants from the Netherlands, who both had a strong background in art and design, Remco was brought up in a creative household near the active stone quarries of the Dublin Mountains. With his mother’s darkroom at his disposal he had an early start experimenting in the techniques of photography.

Trained as a carpenter and joiner, craftsmanship is at the core of  Remco’s work. The skilled processes involved and engineered exactness is evident. The work though is more than this, and aims to explore dialectic tensions between abstraction and precision, between the unconscious and conscious, and between scientific enquiry and romantic transcendence. The effect is often to subvert the scientific reductionism and positivist World view from which ‘exactness’ is born.

There is something atavistic in the energies that the artist applies in the making of his work, both physical and conceptually, harking back to something ancient and ancestral in terms of our relationship with light, nature and environment. The essayist Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith alludes to this in his essay relating to the photographic works when he refers to Remco as a night-raider of Nature’s hidden image-hoard.

Lest we think this story is all about harking back to the past, we are often reminded of the artist’s placement in the present, a “point of view” from which his perspective is drawn. Titles such as Perpetual Motion and Random Access Memory suggest that it is the exploration of the links, loops and overlays that perhaps best describes his practice.

Publications • Read more about the artist ➜

Curriculum Vitae

Curriculum Vitae

Education

  • 1984 – Qualified as a Carpenter/Joiner
  • 1986 – Grennan Mill Craft School
  • 1991 – B.A. 1st Class Honours Degree, Fine Art Sculpture.
    Commendation in History of Art [Thesis] N.C.A.D.
  • 2018 – MFA Fine Art Sculpture N.C.A.D

Selected Exhibitions

  • 2024 194th R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
  • 2021 Rua Red Gallery 
  • 2019 The Book project, The 9 Stones Artists, VISUAL Carlow
  • 2019 Utopia/Dystopia  Lexicon gallery Dun Laoghaire
  • 2016 ‘Chasing Shadows’, Photography Ireland, various venues Dublin city centre     
  • 2016 The Possibilities of Place, The 9 Stones Artists, Visual, Carlow 
  • 2015 ‘Chasing Shadows’, Dimbola Museum & Galleries, The Isle of Wight     
  • 2015 Cosmic Dust, VISUAL, Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow   
  • 2013 183rd R.H.A. Annual Exhibition 
  • 2012 ‘Nine Stones Artists’, Eigse, Carlow, Dreighton hall
  • 2011  ‘Constillations’, Eigse at VISUAL Carlow 
  • 2008 ‘Overflow’ Model Arts Centre, Sligo
  • 2009 The Nine Stones Artists, group show, the Norman gallery, Wexford
  • 2009 179th R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
  • 2006  176th R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
  • 2005 Common Ground, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Grennan Mill, Thomastown
  • 2005 175th R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
  • 2005 Forty Shades of Green, Glucksman Gallery Cork
  • 2005 Eigse Carlow
  • 2004 R.H.A. Banquet Show
  • 2004  174th R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
  • 2003 ‘An Tuireann’, Isle of Skye
  • 2003 ‘Perspective 03,’ Ormeau Baths Belfast
  • 2003 173rd R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
  • 2002 ‘Sculpture at Kells’ Co. Kilkenny
  • 2002 Ióntas Award Winners
  • 2002 172nd R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
  • 2002 Sculpture in context
  • 2001 Salon des Grands et Jeunes d’aujourd’hui
  • 2001 Touching the Dark
  • 2001 171st R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
  • 2001 Oireachtas
  • 1998 Boyle Arts Festival
  • 1998 ‘EVA’, Limerick City Gallery
  • 1998 R.H.A. Annual Exhibition
Cosmic Dust Visual Carlow 2015
Cosmic Dust
9 Stone Artisits exhibtions with Random Access Memeory VIII by Remco de Fouw
9 Stone Artists Exhibitions

Photo: Aisling McCoy

Commissions

  • 2024/2025 ‘Dandelion Clocks’ Tallaght and Connolly Hospitals & NCH Main Building, Dublin. (ongoing) 
  • 2023 ‘Sky Rivers’ Carlow Town Park, Carlow County Council, Leopardstown 
  • 2018 ‘Metropropolis,’ Collaborative Commission Central Park, Leopardstown 
  • 2017 ‘Atlas Axis’ Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin
  • 2014 ‘Waggle Dance’ Collaboration N.U.I, Maynooth 
  • 2013 A Voice Irish Prison Services Headquaters (OPW) Longford.
  • 2012 ‘Voice’ OPW Prison Services Headquarters, Longford
  • 2011 ‘A Wake’ Pobalscoil Inbhear Sceine Kenmare Co Kerry. 
  • 2011 ‘Nine Waves’ Pobalscoil Inbhear Sceine, Kenmare, Co. Kerry 
  • 2008 ‘Castleblayney Bombing Memorial’, Co. Monaghan
  • 2007  ‘Point of view’ Ballina, Co. Mayo.
  • 2007  ‘Eye Witness’ Ballina Mayo, Eye Witness.
  • 2008 ‘Free fall’ Drogheda Swimming Pool, Co. Louth
  • 2008  ‘Gods Navel’ Jury’s Hotel Charlotte Place Southampton UK 
  • 2005 ‘Silent Witness’ Meath County Council Offices Ashbourne. 
  • 2004 ‘Temple of the Waves’ Ballyheige Co Kerry.
  • 2002 The Great Book Of Gaelic ‘ Touring’
  • 2002 ‘Portmarnock Strand Eccentric Orbit’ Collaboration
  • 2002  ‘Sound Seeds’Glór Ennis Co. Clare.
  • 2000 ‘The Whoseday Book’ Irish Hospice Foundation.
  • 2000 ‘First Conundrum’ Edinburgh International Conference Centre.
  • 1998 ‘Turnstone’ Alma Place Monkstown Co. Dublin.
  • 1997 ‘Satellites’ Brú na Boinne Visitors Centre O.P.W. 
  • 1997 Meltdown’ Collaboration Newcastle Upon Tyne ‘
  • 1997 ‘In Touch’ Microsoft W.P.G.I. Leopardstown Dublin.
  • 1996 ‘Perpetual Motion’ Collaboration Naas By Pass. 
  • 1994 ‘The Green Machine’ The Green Building Temple Bar.
  • 1992  ‘Quintessometry’ Waterford Regional Hospital 
Voice
A Voice public art commision by Remco de Fouw interior