This globally celebrated figurative sculptor is renowned for capturing the minutia of life and everyday human interaction. This solo show invites you to understand her creative force as displayed alongside her sculptures will be a selection of drawings and poems.
In the life room, I write. 'An arm is a collection of leaves and a foot at the end of a lying leg is punctuated by stone, as if we inevitably just settle back down to the earth.'
The natural world, the land, the seasons, my work, my life, is of course all one. Is of course me, is of course all of us.
Since birth
I was married
to the grass.
I am sister to the leaf
and child to the tree
house of the beetle
nest of the bird
shelter for the moth.
I live on an old footpath, crossing an area of common land heading from Essex to the City of London. One hundred and fifty-seven years ago, campaigners saved it from development and so today I can see thick black trunks congregating on an ice white dance floor.
On a preserved island in a sea of concrete the branches reach to each other as the sun slips through, illuminating our grip on the ancient.
I have made her
rock
not leaf.
She is the land
but walking as human.
And the land holds
the beetle and the moth.
Dorset is the county of my mother's home; she is the daughter of a farmer and the niece of a cheese maker. Within this 'verdant plain' of Thomas Hardy, this Vale of the Great Dairies, Monique and Simon Gudgeon have turned an old fishery into a 26 acre oasis.
Monique gardens as much for nature as for herself. Simon's core belief is that 'sculpture must above all be beautiful, stimulate the senses and elevate the spirit.'
Together with their team they have quietly, relentlessly, verdantly, built a place 'that breaks down barriers between you and your surroundings'.
Of course I would jump at the chance of a solo show there, in a building called The Retreat.
Carol Peace, January 2023
Exhibition runs Friday 7th April to Sunday 30th April 2023.
Open 10am to 5pm Wednesday to Sunday. Tickets available from Sculpturebythelakes.co.uk
Carol Peace will be giving an artist talk at The Retreat at 11am on Saturday 8th April.
