Connection, 2007, English Alabaster

By far the most substantial work in the show, Connection should be the central jewel of the exhibition, and it is only because of the strength of the rest of the work that I cannot in all honestly state this to be the case. However, the poignancy of the work requires we visitors to view the piece in complete isolation from the room around; this work is about a kind of life-line through love, and the intimacy between the characters demands our attention.

 

Here Viv explains the work:

It was finished in 2008 but I started in 2007. They are two huge pieces, one weighs 45 kilograms, the other weighs 50 kilograms, and they are worked in relation to each other. When I first started doing them I dropped a dress size in a month because it was such hard work! It was incredibly physical, and working big pieces is incredibly dynamic and exciting. The lovely story about these is that I bought the two pieces of stone separately, and then we had the house converted so I could have a studio at home: the two pieces went away, were packed away together, and they came out together, and obviously wanted to be worked together. That is where I got the idea for a 'connection' from. I had had the idea that the bigger one might be Horus, but I didn't know much about Horus. I was doing an exhibition called 'Flights of Fantasy' which was about birds, and somehow Horus seemed to fit in with this. And then everywhere I went there seemed to be images of Horus; I went to a conference in Switzerland and there was a 20 ft brightly coloured sculpture of Horus! So I then explored the myth of Horus and found out about his relationship with Hathor his Queen. Horus was in a battle with his brother Seth, Seth gouged his eyes out, but Hathor bathed his eyes in milk and gave him back his sight (which is why the eye of Horus is such a lucky symbol in Egypt). The legend goes that Hathor his Queen takes him inside of her every night and gives birth to him anew every morning. So in the sculpture, Horus – the sun god – is giving rays of sun to Hathor his Queen. Hathor has the Egyptian ankh on her back, which is the symbol of eternal life, because she is the one who is giving birth to him again every morning. What is important is the gap between them because the 'connection' is the tension between the sculptures, so this space in the middle is important to me.

Viv communicated this interaction beautifully. Approaching the sculpture from one side Horus's face is outward looking and protective, while from the other direction his eye looks directly into Hathor's face in an intimate exchange. These sculptures are positioned on an area of sand; this part of the gallery offers sight of a scene happening in a world beyond the gallery. We are privileged to hold the sight of such an exchange.
 

The green alabaster stone has a different quality to other stones in the exhibition and the size of the pieces have real gravitas. They are like chess pieces or the Japanese netsuke sculptures: the forms are ancient and yet – because of Vivien's vision for shaping – utterly modern.

Interview with the artist part II

On Monday 7th October Vivien Whitaker will be giving a talk at Towneley Art Gallery, Burneley, in which she will talk about her exhibition 'Source of Inspiration'. I got a sneak preview when I spoke to her just after we finished installing the exhibition. 

 Inside the Scream

Now the exhibition is all up, how do you feel?

Tremendously excited and tremendously pleased that it has all worked so well. I thought this was the best room in Towneley Hall when I looked round it 18 months ago, and the way the pieces sit in the room, with the light and the colours of the room, is just fabulous. What is wonderful for me is seeing the pieces that I haven't seen for some time together with my new sculptures, and the sculptures that looked incredibly big in my studio actually look just the right size here. And there is space for people to stand back and look at the sculptures, and most of them you can walk round, and that's fantastic because a good sculpture is one that is different from different angles, and needs to be seen from every angle. There have been some surprises: I was delighted when we realised that the dust montage 'Soul Window' matches so beautifully with Swan Preening, because the base of Swan Preening is frostily marble, which is the stone I'd used for half of the image for Soul Window and so we have placed those together in the exhibition. One of the things that people love – looking up at the ceiling – is a stone mobile, because it defies understandings of stone. I love the way it is hanging, and it is almost being a sun to Connection, which is set in sand because it is an Egyptian piece. I love the juxtaposition of those two.

There musical or sound element of this exhibition. This is quite a new dimension to your work isn't it?

I made the lithophone last year because somebody said to me, 'What are you doing about sounds?', and I said 'well I don't know!' My lovely friend Alastair Anderson, the folk musician, suggested to me that I should make a lithophone (a stone xylophone). I tested all the stone I had to see if it rang, and there was just one piece that rang very well, so from that piece I have made a five note lithophone. There is an image of it in the exhibition, but it is too delicate, sadly, for people to play. However, I have asked various people to make compositions using it. Music student Chris Hobbs has created a composition using it, and also Barbara Mangles, and both of these are being premièred at the preview of this exhibition. And then another friend said to me: 'Wouldn't it be fun to have the sounds of the lithophone and the sounds of you working combined?' So my idea is that as people look at the sculptures they can listen to the sound of the lithophone and also the sound of me working. These are 'Soundscapes' because they are not what one would classically term 'music', nor are they designed to be something that reaches the top of the hit parade; their purpose it to be something that enhances the viewing of the sculptures.

Why did you decide to make an interactive piece in 60 second sculpture?

60 Second Sculpture is another idea from Robert Shaw. He has three of my works and he asked if I could make him some blocks to put on his windowsil because he would like to be able to make his own sculptures and have the light passing through the alabaster everyday. I took that idea and thought it would be fantastic for an exhibition, because everyone wants to be able to touch the sculptures but can't. I thought it would be nice to have a challenge for people, so the blocks are all different sizes, they have different textures on different sides so they are interesting from a tactile point of view. I was particularly thinking of a friend of mine who is blind, and I have made her a touching sculpture; I was thinking about making the surfaces different from the point of view of people who can't see. There is a hole in one of the sculptures as well so they are easy to hold if you are very small. The idea is that everybody comes and has one minute to make a sculpture using the five blocks.

Have you got a favourite sculpture?

The sculpture which I think is the best sculpture in many ways is Inside the Scream. It is quite a disturbing piece (it has reduced someone to tears) and there can be different interpretations: someone saw it as two dolphins leaping, though that's not the origins of the sculpture. What makes it a good sculpture for me is that there are strong turning points so your eye is led round the sculpture, and also it looks dramatically different from each angle. There is a very strong hole through it: going through a hole is interesting because it adds a different dimension to the sculpture, which is the dimension of time that it takes your eye to pass through the hole. The piece of alabaster itself is extraordinary; its very translucent, it looks almost like you are looking into a brain, and that's the very disturbing element of it. It has also got things that look like wings coming out of it, and there's a very interesting part where I have left some of the rough stone to contrast with the highly sanded, sealed stone, and so both visually and from a tactile point of view you get a contrast.

Hush Wing

Hush Wing is one of the earliest works in this exhibition, and it shows the beginnings of Viv's preoccupation with birds. Such a concern seems strange given that her chosen medium is stone, but – as with the mobile I Wish I Could Fly – Viv is able to promote the sense of freedom and weightlessness through something so permanent. This particular piece is certainly substantial and seems to defy gravity in that it is only connected to the base in one small area. In being only lightly representation it beautifully evokes bird in flight, but the monumentality of the piece acts as a bold and definite celebration of the very concepts that the bird in flight stands for.

A little bit of information on the artist...

Vivien Whitaker ARBS

 

 

Vivien Whitaker has developed unique ways of sculpting sensuous stone that enhances its elemental essence and resonance. She does not work with hammer and chisel as this 'bruises' the stone. Vivien sculpts using metal files and rifflers, using rhythmic repetition, which stimulates a process she terms 'independent hands' where her hands start working in ways her head didn't have in mind.

She directly carves, without a plan - working with the stone to create a sculpture rather than imposing a design: allowing the 'form donnée' to emerge. She comments ‘Every day is an adventure into the unknown, going beyond the rational, working in flow, being spontaneous in the moment.’
 

Vivien trained with Peter Hibbard, a former assistant to Henry Moore, is an elected member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and has a First class BA (Hons) in Art and Design.
 

Her  alabaster sculpture ‘Selkie’ is displayed in the ‘About Art’ room in Weston Park Museum, Sheffield and her joint work (with Alison Counsell) ‘Beyond Venus’ is part of the current ‘Designed to Shine’ exhibition at the Millennium Galleries, Sheffield.

Her sculptures are in many public and private collections around the world. For more details visit www.vivienwhitakersculpture.com.

Vivien Whitaker's Retrospective 'Source of Inspiration' opens at Towneley Art Gallery, Burnley

During the last few days I have had the privilege of again working with Vivien Whitaker in order to assist with the curation and hanging of her first retrospective – 'Source of Inspiration' – which opens at Towneley Art Gallery in Burnley this weekend. This perfectly formed exhibition features most of the major works that Viv has created over the last eleven years. All of the works are crafted from the English Alabaster stone, a stone that has a long and wonderful history in sculpture, but on display in this exhibition are the carvings of some of the last pieces of the Alabaster to be mined in the UK. It is, therefore, an historic display, and in her pieces Viv gives a nod to the traditions of using the stone in the middle ages (mainly for church decoration), as well as to the style of the twentieth-century giants of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth who often carved using English Alabaster.


Over lunch I chatted to Viv and asked her about how she felt about the exhibition.


Why did you decide to hold this – your first retrospective – here in Burnley?
I was born and brought up in Burnley, and Towneley Art Gallery was the first art gallery I ever went to as a child. It was a place I came to very frequently and was my first experience of art; I think that was very inspirational. That is one of the reasons why we have called the exhibition 'Source of Inspiration', but this title also refers to the medium that features in the exhibition. I have been carving the last of the English Alabaster for the last ten years and that has been a huge source of inspiration for me.

Can you remember what was here when you used to visit all those years ago?
Bill the big bear; in my day you could touch him, but these days you can't. But I think it was seeing lots and lots of different kind of visual art which really made the impression on me.


Tell us a bit about your journey in getting to this exhibition.
I started carving Alabaster in 2002, so it has been eleven years, but this exhibition has been 18 months in the making, and it has been very exciting. Typically I do joint exhibitions so I do the bit in the middle and someone else does the walls, but having this solo exhibition was a huge challenge. As a direct carver I don't make sketches or anything like that so I have literally nothing to put on the walls. One of my collectors – Robert Shaw – said to me 'What do you so with the dust' and I said 'Well I put it on the compost heap, what else would you so with it?' He said 'Why don't you make something with it?' This big challenge has been something that has evolved to be the Dust Montages, which are three-dimensional collages made of alabaster dust, chippings from the carvings, mixed with a whole range of different media. Very experimental. I went back to the middle ages when they made tempura with egg yolk, and I mixed some of it with egg yolk which, with the red dust produced a very vivid orange, and I thought I had better cover that with varnish fairly quickly in case it started to smell. I also experimented with how I put things on, so I used pine cones and ferns, and feathers rather than painting things on. With one of the other dust montages – Exploding Star – I flicked mixtures (in a very Jackson Pollock way) across the horizontal aspect, which was great fun. With the third montage I built up using sculptural clay to create a very different effect.


What was your vision behind the selection of the works?
One of the special things for me is to get work from the whole ten year period so that people – including myself – can see how my work has developed over the whole ten years. My private collectors have been very generous because they have allowed the works to come out for the exhibition. This is the first time that I will have seen my major pieces together, never mind anyone else. I have another set of works in private collections which – because of their delicate nature – we were unable to bring up for the exhibition. We were still very keen to have them represented in the display so I have produced gicleé prints of those works to hang on the walls.

What does it mean to you to have a Retrospective?
It feels fabulous! It feels the right time because I have just carved the last large piece of English Alabaster: from an Alabaster point of view there is no more English Alabaster left. It feels like an ending. The soundscapes that will be played at the exhibition are something that I have created from the sounds of the Alabaster lithophone that I made, along with sounds of me working, and I have called it The Last of the English Alabaster. For me it is a very poignant piece; it very slowly fades away, which for me is about the history of English Alabaster, how it has been used and also how now not only is there not much of it left, but people don't see much of it either. It is really important to me that visitors to the exhibition are able to see all of these last pieces of the English Alabaster: they can see it in the public collections, but this will be the only time they can see my works that are in private collections, which are some of the most dramatic pieces.


Vivien Whitaker's Retrospective 'Source of Inspiration' is on at the Towneley Art Gallery until 12^th December.