‘Five talented sculptors have been invited to place their work within the majestic interior of Winchester Cathedral, specifically in locations which share the same materials to create new and different ways of seeing and understanding the architecture and objects within this historic building’. This exhibition was curated by Peter Walker, one of the exhibitors.
I am showcasing four of my larger steel sculptures while others are exhibiting with glass, clay, bronze and concrete.
Empty Book addresses an unlearning, which I believe is an important part of learning. It references ‘The Book of the Book’ by Idries Shah in which he tells the story of a closely guarded ancient book said to contain all the secret knowledge of the world, and which was forbidden to be opened. When finally someone plucked up the courage and disobeyed the order it was found to be completely empty.
White Tree is a play with angle iron. I welded several lengths together into vertical zigzags which are then dissolved into individual flat strands – a bit like streaming ribbons. On another level the shape hints at an invisible force, maybe wind, pressing against the vertical form until it leans, forcing it to yield.
Portable Sigh was made following on from my biggest sculpture to date, the Sunset Stack at 6.7 m. It picks up the exhaustion that was felt after the elation of working on a really large scale. I see the Portable Sigh as an important counterbalance, a celebration of the inevitable deflation after a high.
Hiatus …or Tardis. Human in scale, Hiatus is an invitation to enter a transformation chamber. In the workshop Hiatus was also referred to as the Coffin, which is another transformation chamber of sorts. Hiatus has both energies, the striving upwards as well as the sagging down.