Imprints
Imprints, one of two public engagement projects took place on Trawalua Strand in August 2026. Following on from previous Tread Softly sand sculpture events – Nine Queens and the Sand Drawing series - artists Barra Cassidy, Seamus Dunbar & Bettina Seitz worked with participants to create temporary sand sculptures: Balor’s footprints.
Photographs by Joseph Hunt
THE SCULPTORS
Barra Cassidy
Barra is an Irish artist, based in Sligo, who works in a range of materials including ceramic, concrete, bronze, steel and found objects. His work draws on a fascination with mythology, primitive art, anthropology and a keen interest in the wonders of wildlife. He creates sculptures for interior and exterior display in figurative, surreal and abstract form, which resonate with the ancient. Barra’s work regularly features in exhibitions across Ireland and beyond in a range of galleries, public spaces and private collections. His most recent public commissions were for Sligo County Council (2021) and Roscommon County Council (2022).
Seamus Dubar
Séamus Dunbar is a Sculptor living in Manorhamilton where he helped to establish the Leitrim Sculpture Centre. In addition to traditional sculpting media, Séamus has worked with Theatre and Contemporary Dance Companies. In 2013 he took a Masters Degree in Art in Public, which focused on public engagement and creating and showing work beyond the studio and gallery walls.
Bettina Seitz
Bettina Seitz works across sculpture, installation, and collaborative film projects using a wide range of materials and processes. Her current practice centres around temporary, site-responsive sculpture installations in the landscape. Tracing histories of human presence in remote and uninhabited places off the west coast of Ireland, she views history, mythology, and migration as an integral part of the human experience.
Seitz’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with many public and private art commissions and sculptures in private and public collections in Ireland and abroad. In May 2026 she was ‘Artist in Focus’ and a panelist at the Arts Council’s Festival Makers Conference with a special presentation of her film Monk.
