Artists get hare-y for children's charity

SEVERAL West Cork artists have been invited to design a hare for the ‘Hares on the March’ campaign which will see 110 sculptures on display at 50 locations around Dublin over the next two months.

Some of the hares will then be auctioned in aid of the Jack & Jill charity for sick children.

Siobhan O’Leary’s blue ‘Space Hopper’ hare is 3ft high and made of fibreglass.

She describes it as ‘a cosmic space cadet who leaps through galaxies’ and says that she was inspired by the quest to bring ‘alternate worlds and times into a single moment’. 

Her Space Hopper is a homage to the creative visionaries who dare to go into the dark to find the brightest light out there, she says. ‘The moon that rises in her ear is her compass and the galaxies she traverses are etched on her skin.’

Siobhan is one of six artists from Cork who have designed hares for ‘Hares on the March’ which is sponsored by Lily O’Brien’s Chocolates, whose founder Mary-Ann O’Brien is also the co-founder of the Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation, which she set up along with husband Jonathan Irwin, based on the homecare plan of their late son Jack Irwin.

  The other Cork hares are ‘Where the Hare is King’ designed by Brian Lalor from Schull; ‘The Paint Job’ by another Schull artist, Keith Payne and ‘Ri’ by John Brennan from Castletownbere and ‘Tess O’Late’ hare by Emer Kelly from Carrigadrohid. Cork city artist Kim-Ling Morris has contributed ‘ Usagi Gami(Ns)’ hare to the exhibition.

 Some of the artists involved in Hares on the March include Pauline Bewick, Peter Curling, John Doherty, Martin Gale, Graham Knuttel, John Shinnors and Donald Teskey. For more, see www.jackandjill.ie.