Sculpture and Photography

Recently I paid a visit to the West Sculpture Park, just outside Wakefield. It’s a place that has always held a strange vibe for me. I’m not usually a big fan of cotemporary art – and even less so, contemporary sculpture. However, the WYSP is a fantastic outdoor setting for large installations and with fantastic pieces by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth it’s well worth a visit. What struck me this time though were pieces by Elisabeth Frink, in a sculptures entitled “Sitting Man II”. In looking at the sculpture, I decided to treat it as a portrait – and as the sculptor had given the man a mask to focus attention on the face – the physical presence of the sculpture made me want to pull back and shoot a full length shot.

Sophie Ryder’s Lady Hare sculptures were equally interesting as her merging of human, animal and mythological elements created some fantastic forms. It’s quite odd when you round a corner to find a wire mesh hare kneeling in front of you!

For me, the main attraction of the WYSP is the combination of sculpture in fantastic countryside. It’s easy to spend an entire afternoon there, but take walking boots as one of the gallery’s is a 2km walk away from the main building and exhibitions. Sculpture is something that I’ll force myself to examine more often – and maybe consider producing some photography that pays some sort of homage to tradition and ancient sculptors.

Sitting Man 2, Elisabeth Frink

Lady Hare - Sophie Ryder

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 7:10 pm and is filed under Blog and tagged with sculpture, Wake, west yorkshire sculpture park. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.