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Peter Randall-Page and Andy Goldsworthy
Thursday, 21st January 2010 07:54 AM
I am lucky to live close to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield. The park has grown from small beginnings about 20 years ago to become a major arts venue in the region. As well as changing exhibitions in the grounds and the various galleries there are resident pieces including many by Henry Moore. Even if you don't like modern sculpture the grounds are beautiful, especially the large cedar of Lebannon trees which are scuIptural in themselves. I recently attended the exhibition at the park of stone sculptures by Peter Randall-Page. The exhibition put me in mind of another exhibition at the YSP, of works by Andy Goldsworthy. Both artists take their inspiration from the natural world but channel it in different directions.
Randall-Page’s stone sculptures reveal patterns in nature. Recently he has produced works exploring the Fibonacci series, large organic pieces often resembling over ripe fruit or seeds. They have an internal tension, as if the stone surface is a skin retaining the juice of the fruit or a writhing animal inside (like an organism wriggling under the skin as in a sci fi movie!). This sense of tension gives the pieces a special quality. A similar tension is an important element in both art and design, a thing, whether a picture or piece of furniture can seem dull and lifeless without this quality.
Many of the indoor pieces were in Kilkenny limestone a black sedimentary stone with tiny white fossils lodged in it. The stone was finished to an exquisite matt smoothness, just crying out to be touched or stroked, unfortunately forbidden by the watchful attendants!
Some of the patterns Randall-Page creates are similar to those seen in the Secret Life of Chaos recently shown on BBC4.
I don’t think I have met anyone who doesn’t like the work of Andy Goldworthy. His back to nature approach to art seems to appeal to something inside all of us. While Randall-Page works to reveal the patterns in nature Goldsworthy works with nature but uses it to impose an order. He uses found objects, leaves, sticks icicles etc to impose an order on nature. He achieves this by ordering the objects into incongruous shapes or forms, a line of leaves pinned together in a stream, a pile of stones forming a perfect sphere, a perfect tapered curve of clear water in the chaos of leaves floating in a pool. A common theme is the hole in a surface or a clear space in a chaotic surrounding, in one room of the underground gallery he had created a hanging curtain across the whole gallery made from the stalks of horse chestnut leaves, pretty amazing in itself, but in the curtain was a carefully defined hole. In another room he had built a structure from woodland thinnings, looking out the rectangular doorway provided a contrast to the interweaved trunks. Also in the underground gallery were a set of "stone domes". Domes assembled from flat sandstone, each with a small hole at the top, again this recurring motif (see link below).
In another gallery were “paintings” created in or by nature. A series of sheep "paintings" where he laid a sheet of paper or canvas down where sheep congregate in a field and leave their hoof prints, a covered area (covered perhaps by a sheep lick) is left untrampled, again leaving a clear space in a chaotic surrounding.
After seeing the exhibition I was keen to explore the idea of “the hoe in chaos “ in my own design, but never seemed to have the time, too busy keeping the cash flow going. Perhaps I need to get an arts council bursary!!
The Peter Randall-Page exhibition is on until 11th April.
Links:
YSP Site http://www.ysp.co.uk/view.aspx?id=3
Andy Goldsworthy digital ctalogue http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/
Film on Andy Goldsworthy's stone domes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNEUfO0hfVI
Film on Peter RP at YSPhttp://www.blip.tv/file/2971230
Secret Life of Chaos http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pv1c3/The_Secret_Life_of_Chaos/
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Organic forms in Kilkenny limestone by Peter Randall-Page
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A curtain of horse chestnut leaf stalks by Andy Goldsworthy at YSP
Comments...Add yours
Posted by Linda on 26/01/10
I think the 'hoe in chaos' is a much more fascinating image than the 'hole in chaos' and probably much more likely to gets an arts grant! (Can't help spotting typos, it's my job.. :-))
Posted by Chris on 27/01/10
I'll have to start reading your blgo more carefully, I'm sure I'll find something!
Posted by Linda on 31/01/10
tel em wonk fi u od!