Alva Gallagher is an Irish-born sculptor based in the Canadian Rockies, working predominantly in cast glass and bronze. Her practice explores the tension between permanence and ephemerality through the translation of transient natural phenomena into enduring sculptural form. Drawn to glass and bronze for their unique manipulative states while molten, Gallagher employs traditional processes of blowing, casting and lost-wax techniques through hand-built moulds to create works that hold traces of oceanic movement, glacial surfaces and elemental landscapes. Through material transformation, she challenges the perceived limits of these mediums and invites audiences into large-scale installations that preserve fleeting moments in states of suspension.
Growing up in Ireland’s premier fishing port, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, instilled in Gallagher a lifelong fascination with water, ice, depth and rhythm. Her recent body of work, Monuments, extends this inquiry through direct field casting of glaciers and ice formations, developed through research in the High Arctic during the 2026 Arctic Circle Residency. Working directly from glacial surfaces, the project considers sculpture as an analogue record, preserving moments of transformation and creating material encounters with landscapes that exist in continual change. Rather than representation, these works operate as acts of translation; preserving fleeting states and revealing metaphors for memory, fragility and the human condition.
Gallagher was awarded a United Nations Medal in 2025 for her contribution to the arts during the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. Selected commissions and exhibitions include PULSE, a landmark interactive public artwork at City Quay, River Liffey, Dublin, commissioned by Fáilte Ireland, Dublin Docklands and Dublin City Council; Conch, a site-specific bronze sculpture for Carlisle Bay, Antigua; a major private commission for 30 St Mary Axe (“The Gherkin”), London; inclusion in the National Collection at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks; publication in CAST: Art and Objects (Schiffer Publishing, New York), held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Into the Deep, her 2024 solo exhibition at Winston Wächter Gallery, Seattle | New York.
