Art students restore statues

ART students worked hard to restore a number of nativity statues in time for a local parish to celebrate Christmas.

Ballyfermot College of Further Education students on the one-year ADT programme (Art Design & Three Dimensional Studies), forensically repaired the statutes and handed them back to the Church of the Most Holy Sacrament in Cherry Orchard.

Fr Michael Murtagh, Cherry Orchard parish priest, was putting the finishing touches to the restored crib outside the church on Tuesday morning as The Echo called.

“Last year with Covid, we came up with the idea of an outside crib with the statues. Somebody donated them, but they were in a state of disrepair.

“At one stage they may have been outside the civic centre and then somebody inherited them. The students did a great job on them,” said Fr Murtagh.

BCFE’s Brian Walsh, said the restoration work by his students involved completing several repairs on the large fiberglass statues.

“Cleaning and priming of the statues before starting the colour mixing, and finally, the task of carefully painting each figure. The figures are ‘modelled in paint’ to give a more realistic look,” he said.

“These statues were a feature of Dublin Christmas for many years and may have been originally displayed in O’Connell Street nativity.”

During the project, students gained an insight into areas such as restoration, props painting, makeup artistry and specialist painting.

Mr Walsh praised the students for their work, including Calum Nixon, Sarah Orr, Sean Scully, John Francis Gilligan, Sophia Doyle, Natalie Flanagan and Erika Styres.

For further information on the ADT art programme visit HERE.