3 July - 3 August 2002
Lionel Bawden
Thoughts Brought Forth by our Fingers
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Artist CV
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What do our thought look like as they take shape? Lionel Bawden envisages possibilities - beautiful organisms able to shape-shift within our imagination; continuously repeating structures, perpetually expanding in different directions. Bawden chooses pencils as his sculptural medium equally for their beauty of colour and form as for their ability to invite reflection upon our desire for self-expression. The artist perceives pencils as intimately associated with one’s everyday life and as such they form the foundation for his explorations into the notion of ideas as sculpturally realised shapes.
The series of works ‘esque –thoughts brought forth by our fingers – forms a landscape of the imagination, which is both familiar and sublime. First observations render the material either obvious or surprisingly mysterious. As recognition arrives, whether instantaneous or gradual, rich associations of childhood are evoked, reminding us of our impetus for invention, creation, drawing and writing. The different works suggest the myriad of possibilities in which our ideas find form.
This exhibition of works explores a play of material and form. Rigid machine-made hexagonal geometry juxtaposes the sensual organic forms (Bruce James - "verging on erotic display"). The honeycomb pattern suggests the one-minded/many-minded beehive and the microcosm of cellular organisms. Bawden’s sculptures propose that the mind and world are simultaneously evolving and exploring new possibilities.
Bawden transforms the material of childhood with its countless associations to depict a thriving landscape of mind and imagination, both alien and familiar at once.
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