With the Grain: Wood Sculpture by David Nash; Jeffery Camp — Rubicon
In the foyer of Lewes Town Hall is a sculpture by David Nash called ‘Shrine’, made from American Redwood, a lapped and sheltering piece half-turned in on itself, as if in meditation. It’s placed here to welcome the visitor and to signpost the exhibition from the street — to suggest to anyone peering in at the door that something strange and different is afoot in these august public offices. And august they are, as you will see as you process up the impressive and intricately carved late Tudor staircase, into a long corridor hung with photographs of Nash at work.
At the far end, filling the doorway to the Regency Assembly Room, are the darkened twin verticals of another sculpture — wedges of wood of intriguing aspect. As you draw closer, these charred oak standing figures are revealed to their full extent, crowned with approximate human features and called ‘King and Queen’, as if in response to Henry Moore’s famous sculpture of this subject.
Moore was in fact a precursor of Nash in the Town Hall, for the team responsible for this exhibition (Ann Elliott and Paul Myles) have organised a series of sculpture displays at Lewes of which this is the fourth. They began in 1999 with Rodin, moved on to Anthony Caro in 2001, Moore in 2004, and now Nash. It’s a brilliant idea to utilise the vast ballroom with its sprung floor and high ceilings for large sculpture, and, in the case of Nash, the organisers have decided to emulate the kind of crowded installation the artist himself favours in the old Welsh chapel where he keeps his work.
Since 1966, Nash has lived and worked in Blaenau Ffestiniog, two years’ later buying Capel Rhiw and its adjoining schoolhouse.
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