It is a year since this exhibition in South Africa but I wanted to re-post this video to see again this huge collection down in the southern hemisphere. Some great, huge pieces and a collection which tells a story. Sculptural Story telling.
Category Archives: Exhibitions
In conversation with….
Film clip of opening night
Tonight is the night
After several years of carving, crafting, working and whipping up huge sculptural stories, tonight in Johannesburg the opening of my husband solo show will showcase all that work in one space at Graham’s Fine Art Gallery (photos from the gallery)
The sculptor was amazed to see himself larger than life. ( I see this everyday!) but literally plastered all over the building.
A month at sea, a stay in the port and then the drive from Durban to Johannesburg to the gallery, the sculptures arrived not quite without hiccup.
A few damaged and the repair kit missing added to the drama. However, hoping today that has all been fixed. I haven’t heard any updates so praying that everything is going well.
So he spent an intense day unloading and setting up.
Yesterday, he had interviews.
Tonight the show will open. I am so excited all the way back home here in North Yorkshire and anticipating hearing all about it….find out more tomorrow.
Here is a sneak preview :
‘Seasons’ in South Africa
At the beginning of the year my husband took a trip to Johannesburg to check out a gallery there which was interested in his work. His trip turned into his usual adventure with tales to tell and amusing anecdotes to recount. Excitingly though he was really impressed by the space and what the gallery could deliver.
So began the next process of getting the sculptures ready and wrapped. Arranging meetings with the shipping company and which sculptures were going on the voyage. It was almost a huge relief when they left the studio revealing again space to start creating again.
The pieces looked like Christo’s work, wrapped and draped:
So I think a total of 24 sculptures and a sketch book to be framed and mounted were all at sea for the last month. Now the anticipation is of them arriving safely from Durban travelling to Graham’s Gallery in Johannesburg for a large solo exhibition titled, ‘Seasons’. This is including the collections, ‘Mother and Child’, The Giants and the collection of heads.
His work explores the human condition and the human form, paring the visible shape down to it’s most minimal to describe the body as a simply a vessel which houses a shared human experience.
‘Seasons’ is a word I have only recently come across, being used as a term to describe the period of time we are in, not only the climatic shift from Winter into Spring. I am in a shifting season I think to match the time of year. Especially in motherhood do we experience extreme and often changing seasons but anyone experiences different times in their life and approaches to those moment. There is always the potential for change.
It seams a little surreal that this month on May 25th it will be the opening to his large solo show. There is still quite a lot of preparation to do before then and the sculptor will have to fly out before hand to check out each pieces do any necessary repairs and set up the exhibition. It’s going to be amazing to see such a collection in a professional space all together.
Boys, Barnsley and beyond.
Friday afternoon I took the boys out of school and headed down to Barnsley, it was busy on the roads but according to my phone we were in good time. The boys had snacks in the back but my youngest wasn’t happy with egg sandwiches as they would make him smell he grumbled. This is the boy who eats enough eggs to warrant me having a chicken farm. My eldest pointed out the sign for Barnsley but ‘no’ I said with trusty faith in my technology, we were coming off at the next junction. So we finally came off the motorway and into some traffic works and something didn’t feel quite right. So I pulled in at a garage and looked at my phone. Somehow, and I have no idea how this happened I was heading to the wrong postcode. Fortunately still in the Barnsley area but I had over shot and we were much further south than we needed to be. So I had to turnaround and head back 20 min north with only 5 minutes until opening time. My eldest who usually joins in with my panic with sound effects was surprisingly ultra supportive in my panic. Reminding me that it was all ok, that we were all ok and we would still get there. That everything was going to be alright. It was a good little test for me. I knew we didn’t need to get there at 4pm on the dot but I do like to get to places on time and it was frustrating. Trying to keep calm I reminded myself to think that for whatever reason we had been sent on a little extended tour getting frazzled wasn’t going to help. It was getting darker, and busier driving into the one way system of the town centre so my tension did increase a little. We found parking easily enough and found the gallery. Only 15 min late.phew and not overly stressed. So by the time I walked in I really needed a moment to compose myself as I then faced this:
It was amazing to see the projection of the video, the black and white photos of the process, and into a space with all 10 glorious sculptures together, with clean white walls and fantastic lighting to set them off. The boys took pictures and their sketchbook around, our youngest a little more keen than the eldest unusually so. The eldest appearing to showing small signs of transforming into a little teenager.
There were just enough people there for the private view to make it intimate and for us to talk to the people who had made the effort to come along. The Civic has some lovely interactive activities for children if you can make it whilst the show is running. We have already seen a few more press articles and photographs which are stunning, more of which you can see on The Sculptor’s Wife Facebook page. or this one below is good, if you have managed to stay off the world of Facebook.
I love the idea of transformation. We all have the ability to change. I think winter is the time to prepare for transformation. This morning the scenery on my way to the shop was stunning. The trees in their bare winter glory stood like silhouettes against a hazy, sleepy, wintry landscape of greys and blues with a bright sun lighting up the valley making it twinkle. The land retreats into a cold crisp coating. We can retreat to contemplate the year past and marinate in stillness on how we deal with things in the moment. So, we can be calmer and focused in those times of stress and panic be it small or big, when you get lost on the road or in life. Using that stillness to have the ability to see beyond the discomfort of the moment and know that ultimately everything is going to be alright.
Finding butterflies
Overwhelmed, by seemingly everything at the moment is how I am feeling and yet I know I should be grateful that in so many ways my life is relatively straightforward. The summer holidays passed in a flash and whilst I was more mindful to enjoy the moments with the boys, I was still relieved some what to parcel them back to school this week. Although this gives me a little more time, the activities we are involved in and school work resuming seems it’s just one hectic life for another. I need to find my butterfly wings and aim for feeling less defeated.
The time with the boys has distracted and separated me from the world of art a little and I have missed a few scoops which occurred over the holidays with little time to blog. So here is one: We woke on August 3rd in the morning to receive several messages that my husband had coverage of his name and work on the morning breakfast show. His work got really good coverage and the weather reporter mentioned his name twice The reporter seemed to really like the butterflies and the colours of his work. Here is the best clip we got, doesn’t have it all but it was so exciting.
Defeated Butterflies in Doddington Hall, Lincoln. Coverage on BBC breakfast news.
The poster
Photo shoot today at the studio, so more new images to post and work to write about, once they’ve been uploaded and edited. The ‘Mother and Child’ collection is almost finished and ready for a fantastic exhibition coming up in December.
The journey of motherhood parallels life, it has its ups and downs, highs and lows. My two boys are diverging in their affections of me at present. My youngest is smothering in his kisses and cuddles and albeit, a natural charmer, he is still at the age where he loves me to the moon and back. My eldest has hit the point where when I say “I love you” there is no more, ‘to infinity and beyond’, but a muffled “Okay” in response. It feels to early but I think, as a Cancerian I will need to manage cutting the invisible umbilical cord step by step, although it never feels gentle. The changes are strange, it’s hard to imagine that my youngest will ever start to detach himself from me. Perhaps, he won’t it’s just the nature of their characters or the eldest/youngest child difference. Each stage of mothering has the joys and the challenges. It’s the summer holiday ‘joy’ a the moment. I am deliberately having a positive mindset. Of course, they will never be theses ages again and their infancy is starting to seem like a dream.
I am so excited about this exhibition, still a little while off but time increasingly seems to pass with speed. Not only is this relatively local to us, the space will set off each piece and seeing them all together in a glorious collection will be amazing. Took time to get this poster right but well worth it.
Sweets verses veggies, outdoor sculpture
These images are ‘sweeeeet’. I love the contrast between the bright colours against the linear burnt brown building and neat grass. The piece really looks like candy cane. The colours remind me of the ice cream farm choices stacked in rows where you want to choose by colour not flavour. For example, my youngest requests, ‘the blue and pink’ one please. “But that is bubblegum flavour, are you really going to like it?” I ask. “No”,vigorously shaking his head and promptly chooses a white and brown one. Not so visually attractive.
So I am more and more conscious of how we crave the sweet stuff and then how we slump after it. I love the idea of healthy eating but find it so difficult to maintain whilst having two boys who are not as keen on the idea. Wonder if using my new spiralizer this summer, which will make colourful veggie noodles, will make them change their minds. My eldest is eager for me to try, I just hope all the fun is not in the turning but in the eating also. So lets take a healthier approach and say these sculptures look like natural growing veggies from the ground….just not sure about the blue!
PS. For those of you who think this is an abstract piece. Take another look. See, a head, a body and legs crossed over sitting on the lawn. Relaxing after a healthy spot of lunch in the garden.
A funny poem, for an amazing hand carved sculpture, on this hot day
(Little parody of the Teddy Bear’s picnic) I think the heat in the shop is getting to me.
If you go down to the woods today,
You’re sure of a big surprise
If you go down to the woods today,
You’d better go in disguise
For every butterfly there ever was
Will gather there for certain because
you’ll find there, a huge bull’s backside
Bull’s backside for butterflies
Butterflies are having a lovely time today
Watch us catch them unaware
and see them undefeated play
See them gaily gad about
they love to fly and mount
upon the bull they stay for a dare
At Doddington Hall you can see
the sculpture by Shendi
Inside the hall and in the open air!
THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE 