Contained Light

These works consider the vessel as a metaphor for the human condition — forms of containment, protection and inner life.

Black absorbs light while gilded interiors hold luminosity within shadow, suggesting energy contained rather than revealed.

Sovereign Gate

2026
Terracotta, pigment, 23kt gold leaf, wax

H 48x W 29 x D 16 cm

Keeper of the Ember

2026
Terracotta, pigment, 23kt gold leaf, wax

H 30 x W 17 x D 17 cm

Offering to the Sky

2026
Terracotta, pigment, 23kt gold leaf, wax

H 35 x W 20 x D 23 cm

Lumen Divide

2026
Terracotta, pigment, 23kt gold leaf, wax

H55 x W 34 x D 25 cm

Selected Archive

Large ceramic cauldron vessels. Hand built with clay, tempera and gold leaf

Hand built ceramic vessel, clay, tempera and gold leaf

COIRE I

COIRE, derived from the Irish word for cauldron, draws on the ancestral vessel — an object of nourishment, gathering, and transformation. Inspired by cast-iron skillets used over turf fires in rural Ireland, these ceramic forms reimagine the cauldron as a contemporary sculptural presence.

Hand-built in clay and finished with layered pigments and gold, each vessel holds light within darkness, becoming a metaphor for containment, memory, and shared human experience.

ABOUT

For over two decades, Noel Donnellan worked across historic interiors and architectural projects throughout Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, specialising in decorative painting, gilding and bas-relief sculpture. This European lineage of craftsmanship continues to inform his sensitivity to surface, proportion and permanence.

His current sculptural practice extends this material tradition into ceramics, where architectural form and elemental processes converge. Working primarily in hand-built terracotta with post-fired surface treatments and gilded interiors, Donnellan creates contemplative vessels that explore containment, protection and inner life.

Based in a rural studio in County Limerick, Ireland, his work reflects an ongoing commitment to material integrity, permanence and the quiet transformation of space through form.