More affordable sculpture

These four sculptures are currently on exhibition at the Royal Birmingham Society of Arts until Christmas Eve. I carved the originals in limestone and then made moulds from which I cast these reproductions in Jesmonite. Jesmonite is a composite material used by museums and galleries around the world to create replicas of their prize works.

I use my own blend of aggregates to add to the Jesmonite which allow me to create these pieces with the look and feel of polished limestone. Cast solid in editions of 100, each piece is signed and hand-finished by me using exactly the same tools that I use for my carved originals. And importantly these sculptures are available at a price one-third that of my investment bronzes, making these more affordable sculptures available to a wider audience.

Primavera

73 x 25 x 20 cm.

Primavera (Spring) is the first in a series of four sculptures, my Quattro Stagioni (Four Seasons) series. Each sculpture depicts a female torso morphing into a plant form, representing a season of the year. With Primavera the figure has the head of a crocus with the hands and facial features just beginning to reveal themselves as the new growth of Spring emerges.

Reclining Torso

57 x 14 x 15 cm.

Carved originally from a shard of Cotswold limestone, the female figure in Reclining Torso is gradually revealed as if found in an archaeological dig.

The Sun-Worshipper

38 x 30 x 4.5 cm.

Carved in relief, again from a block of limestone, The Sun-Worshipper was inspired by a lizard sunning itself against a wall outside my studio one summer's day..

Arch

30 x 31.5 x 5 cm.

Arch is another relief carving with the figure sitting within an arched window.  

The pregnant nude in contemporary Art

Jonathan Yeo's recent photo-realistic painting of a heavily pregnant Sienna Miller has attracted much media comment as much for the subject matter as her obvious celebrity. With a few notable exceptions the representation of the pregnant nude in Art is still relatively uncommon. Personally, I think this a great shame but I have been lucky enough to produce one work so far which celebrates this special life moment.

"La Serenissima"

chalk pastel

10.5 x 7.5 in. / 27 x 19 cm.

I had the great good fortune to draw my model Kate, with whom I have worked on a number of my sculptures, when she too was pregnant. And from these drawings I developed this pastel painting. The arch format, the treatment of shimmering light and the dark interior owed much, at the time, to a visit I had made to Venice. So I imagined Kate sheltering from the hot summer sun, seated by an open window in her palazzo in Venice, overlooking the Lagoon. In celebration of that transient but joyful state, I gave the painting the title of "La Serenissima", which means the most serene and is the name by which the City of Venice is known. Just seemed appropriate.

A pregnant torso will also feature as the third sculpture of four in a series carved in stone I am working on. Each season of the year in my Quattro Stagioni (Four Seasons) series is represented by a female torso morphing into a plant form. In the case of the now finished Primavera (Spring) the figure is morphing into a Snowdrop. Este (Summer) which I am currently working on takes the form of a reclining torso morphing into  an Arum Lily and Autumno will be a pregnant torso as ripening fruit. 

"Bronze" at the Royal Academy

As a sculptor who works in bronze I must start by complimenting the Royal Academy.  The audio visual displays in Gallery 2 helpfully and successfully explains what is the complex process of bronze casting, using models of each stage and short but informative videos. However I have to say I found that the video of the Indian foundry where they were pouring molten bronze in bare feet, made me wince!

The exhibition includes some of the finest examples of bronze sculpture from the past 3,500 years and is organised thematically rather chronologically with separate galleries for Figures, Animals, Objects, Gods, Heads and Reliefs. In scale they range from tiny objects of adornment to over-life size figures some 2.5m tall. Both aesthetically and technically there are some major tour de force works on display but the highlights for me were the pieces which spoke to me, some of the oldest and arguably simplest.

First of all there was the elongated Etruscan Votive Figure, Evening Shadow (Cat 32) which apparently was a work which influenced Giacometti. You can see how and why straight away. The notion of the cast shadow has intrigued human beings from time immemorial and in this case from the second century BC. Then there were two wheeled pieces, the 7th century BC Cult Chariot of Strettweg (Cat 22) and the Chariot of the Sun (Cat 7) from the 14th century BC, which combine amazing craftsmanship with powerful symbolism. Another Etruscan piece caught my eye, the Christophe Cista from 350BC (Cat 27) with impressive engraving and a charming grouping of two figures carrying a female figure on top.

In the Reliefs Gallery the inlaid bronze of the first century BC, Mensa Isiaca altar table top (Cat 39), stood out. And the almost primitive series of four 6' tall bronze panels, an exercise in progressive reduction over 20 years, by Matisse in Backs I-IV (Cat 142) were fascinating. There is also an interesting comparison in approach to Portraits between the simplicity of Medardo Rosso's Ecce Puer and the ornate extravagances of materials in Charles Henri-Joseph-Cordier's Jewess from Algeria (Cat 133).

The "Bronze" exhibition is testament to Man's skill, imagination and ambition in creating lasting objects of wonder for thousands of years in this material which still has the power to enchant us today. The exhibition runs until 9th December 2012.


And if, having seen the exhibition, it gives you the taste for owning some bronze sculpture you can always visit my web-site to see the pieces I currently have for sale by clicking here. As well as being, I hope, visually attractive most of my work is also highly tactile, the sensation of touch being an important aspect of my sculptures in bronze, and in stone for that matter.

A Marriage of Form and Dance

I've just added a set of new images of my bronze sculpture, "Twisting Form", to my flickr site. These images show the work from different angles. In doing so they reveal the inspiration for the work. As a visitor to my flickr site has commented, they are "a real marriage of female and organic forms and dance" (sic).

I thought it was a most apt description of this piece which started off as an organic abstraction from the maquette for my figurative sculpture, "Primavera". "Twisting Form"then picked up some Latin American rythms as I worked, listening to CD's of Cuban Jazz.

See all seven in the set for yourself on flickr by clicking here .