The Gallery of Modern Art at Waterford sprung me a surprise on my visit this week. Every now and again something appears in my travels around the world of art which is completely new and unexpected. In this case it was a multi-disciplinary work by the Dublin artist James L. Hayes on the subject of Irish road bowling. In the words of curator, Peter Power, ‘the work became about simplifying the basic assembles,The Bowl, The Road, The Player.’ 

Irish road bowling is a traditional sport found mainly in West Cork, but occasionally other areas of Ireland. It consists of rolling a cast iron ball along a road as far as possible, or in as few ‘bowls’ over a specified distance. When the bowl comes to rest a subsequent bowl is made. It seems not to matter where the bowl finishes, in hedge, ditch or field the next bowl starts in the road nearby. As with all traditional rural sports it becomes hugely competitive with sums of money changing hands on the outcome.

The Score is an artwork consisting of prints, video and images associated with the sport. Most memorable are the cast bowls themselves. Hayes is a sculptor and was taken by the cast iron bowl, which becomes the central focus of the exhibition. These bowls had not been cast in Ireland since the 1960s and his first aim was to create new home cast bowls by building his own furnace or cupola.

He then saw the opportunity of representing the sport in the studio by casting onto the surface of his bowls evocative images of road bowling. He ‘visualised the bowls entering the Sops or by-ways’ by imprinting the surface with nettles, leaves, feathers and even the fingerprints of the bowlers.

The video installation shows the process of casting the bowls with the juxtaposition of the bowlers in the misty murky lanes of Cork. There is a violence of the bowling action that matches the heat of the furnace. What it must be like to see these missiles, only slightly large than golf balls, hurled down the tarmac at speeds of a hundred miles an hour must be fearsome.

The Score is a tactile exhibition at GOMA, Waterford, where visitors are invited to pick up and handle the bowls, and while watching the video feel the heat and intensity of the sport. The gallery is just around the corner from the Waterford Crystal centre and The Score is on until 19th July. As a final point the gallery is closed on a Monday but we turned up, saw the locked door, tapped on the window and the curator opened up and welcomed us in with great enthusiasm- it could only happen in Ireland.