Vivienne Roche is a sculptor whose focus is on themes of place, space and time. Ciarán Benson provides a critical insight into Roche's public art works, identifies the indebtednesss her work owes to the practices of engineering and architecture, and brings the reader through her development as an artist from the time of her first major sculptural commission in the early 1980s.

Roche herself speaks of the watersheds in her career - the introduction into her work of the bell form, the time she spent in Scandinavia, and the public art opportunites of the 1990s. Living on the south coast of Ireland, she has derived enormous inspriation from the sea, producing beautifully fluid and evocative pieces in a variety of media. Shifts and changes take place in her work as she delves deep into her imagination and explores the potential of materials.