"A gathering of uncertainties" an exhibition by Laurence Edwards

There is a breathtaking exhibition on at the Orange Regional Gallery right now that you must see.

No it’s not art on canvas (or paper) this time.  It is an installation of figures, the likes of which I have never seen before.  The collective of figures were tiny and massive, sensitive and clumsy, and human yet ghoulish.  

Upon entry into the gallery, you will see small-scale, delicate and intricate sculptures that draw you closer to inspect their detail.  You’ll follow several small sculptures of men holding sticks, men walking, men crouching and erratic structures of sticks until you come to the small theatre.  You must watch the video that reveals so much about the artist, his background, where he created his figures and how he created them.

The exhibition had so much more impact for me once I listened to the artist and saw how the most immense figures were created.

Laurence Edwards is from England and his wild studio is an old fire station, that in itself must have influenced his organic adornments to the sculptures, as it has an old tree growing through the roof, spreading it’s leafy tendrils down the walls.

Edwards forms his figures initially in clay, roughly packing on the clay and adding organic materials like sticks, wire, ropes, cloth and plant material.  They are then transformed into figures of wax using the Lost Wax method where a mould made from the wax figure is filled with molten bronze.

Placing his figures in appropriate landscapes is important to Edwards.  In 2021, a towering man, “Yoxman” was installed on a marshland on the  East Anglian coastline near Yoxford, there the Goliath stands at nearly 8 metres tall and weighing in at 8 tonnes.

"Yoxman"

My full appreciation of Edwards work came after the video and as I entered the last gallery space, my breath was taken away as I suddenly saw a group of five huge men all walking in the same direction and all looking back except the leader.  

The roughly hewn finish of these enormous, bald, muscular, naked men is unnerving, uncertain, uncomfortable and unsettling.   As I stood in the middle of them I felt like a hobbit among orcs.  They looked like they had emerged from a slimy, muddy underworld with ropes and organic matter still draping and dragging from their bodies.

The longer I studied each, the more I began to feel empathy for them rather than discomfort.  Aptly named, it was a gathering of uncertainty, almost as though they were the ones being swallowed up by nature herself.  This was especially so in the sculpture called “After the flood” where the man seems to be evolving into a creature with wings, trying to break away from the debris caught up around his neck and from being trapped under flood water.

I’m glad I saw this exhibition but it did have me thinking about it all the way home in the car.  I encourage, albeit dare you to visit this exhibition which remains open until 16 April 2023. 

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