The Family has been a subject of exploration in recent sculptures, with two different styles, one in ‘the beginning’ collection and this one in the ‘Souls’ collection.
It represents the idea that within the family we can have a full spectrum of personalities and characters. The family is a microcosm of the community and the globe. If we could live in harmony and peace with our loved ones, be accepting of our differences and celebrate them but realise and honour our similarities we would understand the same principles that bond and unite us as the human race. So much of the world looks at the dark side, to the negative, the qualities which separate us. It casts a shadow.
My son once asked me which was the most important part of a tree. I think I quickly answered off the cuff the seeds but at 6 years old he said “No Mama” it’s the roots. Such is the wisdom of children. We need to build and strengthen our ties. Focus on the roots and the branches will flourish. We can stand tall and proud supporting each other.
‘Souls’ is opening this evening in Blackpool from 6pm and the exhibition runs for 4 weeks. Venn Projects, FYC Gallery (Open Mon, Wed, Fri 10am-4pm. Please contact the gallery direct on 01253 477147, if travelling distances, to ensure it is open to the public) Continue reading “Family Tree”
This was the stand at ‘The Other Art Fair’ this weekend which has been a busy few days for both of us for different reasons. Last night when I was tidying up the house after being busy with the boys for the weekend my husband phoned to say he was finally on his way home and also to tell me about his interview.
Tracey Emin selling works for £50 was a little bit controversial, for some her presence pulled in the crowd but if people were spending and buying her work rather than the 100 picked artists there to sell and promote then it half defeated the point. Anyway,
If you are not too squeamish to watch the taxidermy which really doesn’t do it for me, continue watching to spot the stand in the footage below and a bit further on hear my husband’s interview with CNN at about 2 min 12. I am very proud and quite excited to find out more details about selling some pieces in the last 15 minutes of the 3 day event!
For many the studio appears like an oversized toy box, initially set up like a gallery space it is now a very functional working area. So the sweet like sculptures not in exhibition are wrapped or covered to prevent over spray. A playground of work.
‘Toy box of sculptures’
It has been a year since we had the studio and he has spent many hours there and it has been a prolific year. I always had an inkling that his practice would chance once he had the space and knew that was what we needed. A place to play around with shape, form, ideas. It has meant a development in techniques and styles and smells…..the studio clothes constantly come back tainted with small polystyrene bits which blow around the house and an odour of paint and over spray. The space is filled and now we need more space!
A section of the studio‘working in the space’
One of the recent reasons for spending so much time there was a new project and technique using a large polystyrene block. The carving of which, brought out the Egyptian making techniques. My husband made a carving tool out of a guitar string and a laptop adapter. This worked but was a painstaking process and so a proper cutting tool was ordered which arrived after much of the hard work had been done. The pictures below demonstrate a little bit of the skill involved.
‘Polystyrene block at the start of carving’Busy studio and a refined horse
The studio has become a hub in some ways with visits from people interested in seeing the work develop. However, there is someone who deserves a mention as he is in many ways the artists right hand man and is responsible for the application of the layer of colours. Known as ‘uncle Daz’ by the boys, now of an age where they occasionally hang out with Baba in the studio. Not only do they also come back covered in a dirt and dust they have a unique opportunity in today’s society to have free play. They paint, make, scoot, kick a ball around and play on the back of a disused truck which just happens to be stranded in the grounds at the back of the studio, filled with the left over polystyrene . (n.b Polysterene is now no longer in the truck…health and safety) Although for me the polystyrene wasn’t the problem, but I think there is a time when you have to let them go a little and shed the overprotective mother, let them learn from the fall, the bump or the bruise.
Anyway, I digress. Studio life is a place for play, play which is a work of its own kind. What more can a boy ask for!
‘As the birds wake in the dawn and the sun begins to rise, the soul is more in tune with the supernatural.
It can be strange sleeping in a different place, sounds and sights less experienced. In London last weekend a loud thud woke me from my sleep, I visualised a lorry over turning, sliding and landing with a bang. I heard the birds chirping their dawn chorus amist the unnatural flashing neon lights. My first thought was that the refuse collectors were picking up the rubbish. With grinding sounds, beeps and distressed noises which disturbed the natural order, I realised it was too early and got up and looked out the window. Fire engines and police cars were the ones flashing their lights but I couldn’t see an incident. I moved to another room to see the trauma yards from the house. Several fire officers and paramedics trying to cut their way into a car which was not too far from the window having brought down the garden fence. Not sure if I should be watching but riveted to the spot I watched as they took off the crumpled car door. A man’s body inside. Once through the metal barrier they slide him out in seconds. Surprised that they didn’t then whisk him away to the ambulance, I peered through the break in the blind as they cut off his clothes and left his exposed chest for what seemed a while and I feared he had died on impact or on the extraction from what was his car.
I wondered if his soul was hovering above at my window in the mystical morning of early hours. There was a slight movement of the arm and I realised he was still alive,they finally covered him after putting in an intravenous drip, tube down his airways and practically operating in the middle of the street. Whilst people around slept unbeknown to them the amount of people assisting in this incident on the street below. I thought about all the people doing ‘their job’ for the emergency services and how they unwind and clear their mind after such emotional and visual experiences.
Once the ambulance left with the man safely on board. I went back to bed and sleep finally came. I floated out on the street like a voyeur, one of the woman came over and hugged me and I whispered how amazing the work they had all done but it turned into a tight grip and she asked me why I hadn’t done more to help. I woke and wondered whether the whole thing had been a dream but in the bright sunshine of the sunday morning the remains of the scene proved it had happened.
In the light of day the ghosts of the night were no longer there. The streets were cornered off with tape and the ruins of the fence lay littered around the crushed metal and broken glass that was once a moving vehicle. A possession. A means of getting us quickly from one place to another. It made me think about how we put so much value on our possessions when they can be crushed instantly and rendered useless. Our precious souls on the other hand we take for granted. Bodies saved by the many who work in professions which call upon a kind of heroism that goes sometimes unnoticed. Our physical being so vulnerable, so easily crushed but so resilient, ultimately only the creator knows when our body is to be crushed, no longer of this world. Our soul to be returned.’
Exhibition of ‘Souls’ in three weeks time in Blackpool. So, if you haven’t managed to get to an exhibition in London because you live in the North of England now is your chance to view the pieces which ‘invite the viewer to delve into their own imagination and think deeply about their own existence.’
It is two years since we were last at The Other Art Fair and we all went down for the show. This year I am taking the boys to London this weekend and my husband is going down at the end of the month as I will have to stay and hold fort at the shop. So preparations are underway for “ The Keyhole Family “ collection to go down and be on show this month. Here is a small taster of the 14 pieces that will be on sale (24-27 April). Each one, an original and the last series of this collection. Apparently Tracey Emin will be there signing and selling limited edition prints. Wonder what she will think of the little men…..
This piece is the third in the series ‘Beginnings’ and entitled ‘The Family’ included as the start of community, the point from which generations follow. The beginnings of so many events, feelings, memories, a microcosm of the world.
In recent days I have felt for those families affected by the missing plane in Malaysia. The impact on relatives of those sentenced in Egypt. The families suffering in Syria. When a catastrophe hits an individual it has repercussions on the whole family.
This piece depicts the connection between Father, Mother, Child. The precarious nature of this is visual and from one angle we see Mother and Child with only the thin line of ‘Father’ and from the other angle ‘The Father’ is dominant. The idea that genetic character traits we inherit from our parents and grandparents in some fashion shape who we are.
‘The Family’ (Mother and Child)
The Family is a complex and intricate balance. As a unit it encompasses all the emotions we can feel. Individual families can be so different and diametrically so similar. Within our own family unit, the fact that we are mixed culture makes this very interesting to experience and learn from, both shared and different values and traditions. For a while I thought this was unique but actually with increased discussions with families even where both parents are from the same country a difference in backgrounds and upbringing can create stumbling blocks and need for comprises when children become that shared responsibility.
For me the colour in this piece also has some meaning, the connection between the Mother’s head as yellow and the child as yellow displaying the way a mother’s mind is preoccupied with her child but also the vision of hope for the future, for the next generation. The peaceful white body of the mother connected to the father with ‘red’ for passion, love, heat, anger, attention, warmth, protection. The symbolism of this simplistically and elegantly piece shows all this as it portrays the ‘family unit’
So excited!! After a lengthy visit from Curator Sonja Kielty to the Studio last month an exhibition was agreed for this year. See Cartwright Hall Art Galleries Exhibition programme below:
In the new series, ‘beginnings’ we have another Mother and Child. It is a subject which has been continuously treated in the history of art and the origins interestingly go back to predynastic Egypt. Perhaps this interest has genetically been placed in my husband’s subconscious. It then mainly had associations with religious depiction and set formal arrangement and placement of ‘Mother’ and her child. Later there were the conventions of the time period that governed how paintings and sculptures would portray the subject of motherhood but mostly of the ‘happy mother’.
‘Mother and Child”
Today with almost ultimate freedom to express, we have this minimalistic colourist version. With this, as the viewer we can bring our own interpretations. The cut out circle mimicking the sphere shape balancing on the edge of the leg, as though babe has been within the mother but then taken and placed most precariously in the mother’s trust.
“Mother and Child”
I love the sense of balance in this piece and in this images how the sphere, representing the child is the dominant component. The mother is the structure, the firm base sending this confident solid new ‘object’ off into the world. I also love the way the whole design of ‘the mother’ is two parts, splitting herself in two as she keeps the ‘child’ on her knee on one side and her many other roles on the other.
“Mother and Child”
I have discovered I have two earlier entries both called balance about balance within life and motherhood, both an art in their own right. I thought I’d been quite clever at coming up with different titles, I wonder how many other repetitions I have made. However, life is about repetition especially as a Mother. The amount of times we do the same thing over and over again and sometimes I wonder why, but in my more philosophical moments there is beauty in repetition. The repeated patterns within this series of work pays homage to that. I believe we can, by making small seemingly meaningless task, make a difference to ourselves.
“Mother and Child”
The use of the colour is also important to me in this piece as the strong red legs tell of the strength of womanhood, the quiet suffering and yet at the same time the beauty as though still managing to wear ‘red stilettos’ whilst juggling everything else life has given her, and again the circles and sphere add to this visual analogy.
“Mother and Child”
The blue head (the mother’s mind) connects to the blue sphere (the child), as the mother’s preoccupation is so often of her child. The use of blue for the Mother’s head could also give reference to post natal depression which is a very different side to Motherhood that is not often depicted in the art of the past. The shadows that this piece creates, in themselves make hauntingly beautiful images of ‘Mother and Child’.
Despite my last entry on not being able to write, I have been using what creative energies I have to put together this ‘statement’. I can’t take full credit and say it is my own words though, it is a rehash of things several others have written about my husband’s work. Things he said he wanted to include and a few sentences taken from here or there. Not sure if that is plagiarism mixed up together I think we have finally got a good ‘Artist Statement’. We have had several over the last few years that have almost been right but I think this one finally sums up the work we have to date.
It has now been uploaded on to the website http://www.samshendi.co.uk and we are now up and running on The Royal British Society of Sculptors profile . So we have made progress behind the scenes.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Graduating in 1997 with a first class BA degree with honors from Helwen University of Fine Arts in Cairo, Egyptian born sculptor Sam Shendi creates joyfully coloured abstractions of the human figure which, with the subtlest of indicators, hints at the complexity of human interactions.
Shendi’s works references the work of “minimalism”, the style of paring-down design elements and focusing on the medium of steel, aluminum and paint. Some of his works are deceptively simple in form but include the qualities of metaphorical associations, symbolism and suggestions of spiritual transcendence, which is what the artist of the 60’s and 70’s were trying to avoid.
His works whittles down the human figure to its simplest form enabling the exploration of the idea of the human form as a vessel. So by reducing the human body to a container or minimal shape, his creations become centered on an emotion or an expression. The simplicity is no longer the end result and devoid of meaning but a revelation of a hidden truth and intellectual expression.
Shendi’s work, therefore takes a fine line between representation and abstraction. Whilst he appreciates the abstract form his interest is in the human and psychological dimensions to his sculptures. Stripping human nature down to its essence, and then expressing it in a sculptural language.
Firmly based in modernist morphology his colorful architectural forms abbreviate the human figure and nod to his background in monumental sculpture and interior design. Shendi juxtaposes cartoonish lemon, ultraviolet and pumpkin-coloured blocks, conjuring associations with children’s toys and industrial design and lending his pieces an emotive and playful quality. His candy-coated palette animates the archetypal themes he addresses in his work. Assisted by the use of colour to deceive the eye, flouting a sense of gravity and taking the attention away from the material also gives the work a strong optical impact.
Sometimes we may feel the tension which despite their moderate size almost bear a ‘’will to grow’’ into monuments that we could easily imagine standing in the center of any city or landscape.Pieces balance between public art, sculptural and on the border of design.
With laconic titles his work takes on themes both in subject and style and it is clear to see pieces that group together in an exploration of an idea. They form a visual story and a unique style. There is always one important element, functioning as a keystone connecting all his creation – the theme of a human being in his most genuine form. Shendi always develops his creation around subjects, which are common, understandable and important to all of us, no matter what our taste, age or cultural background may be.
Describing himself as a figurative sculptor it is important to Shendi that the work, however minimalistic still has an impact on the viewer visually and emotionally. Recognizing his work as both literally geometric forms and industrial materials but also with additional meaning in bringing back the idea of traditional academic sculpture of humanity and emotion, results in a distinctive blend of modernity and timelessness.
THE SCULPTOR'S WIFE 