Ivor Abrahams

Description

The view of his stairway, newly painted by his son in hues more colourful than he himself would have chosen, was Ivor Abrahams's starting point for this sculpture. He became fascinated by a place that was entirely familiar, but which had become strange. Stairs are sculptural structures, and Abrahams looks at the spaces in different ways, playing with perspective, positive and negative, void and solid, altering angles, taking many viewpoints.

Head of the Stairs 2000 is the largest version - monumental in scale - of a group of works devoted to the theme: various models, a ceramic maquette, and Bronze Head of the Stairs 2000, a 173 cm high, unique bronze, cast and patinated in a range of colours.

Head of the Stairs has a graphic finish, unlike the other versions, and is closer to Abrahams's three-dimensional photographic collages which represent his first thoughts for sculptures. However, this work has been painted by hand in a photo-realist manner which gives it a tangled web of perspectives which at one point destroys the basic form of the sculpture and at another may enhance or exaggerate it. These complexities are provocative. They also remind us of the way in which cubist painters conveyed imagery: showing their subjects from different points of view and combining them in single compositions.

Ivor Abrahams likes his sculptures to be accessible. He therefore chooses to employ everyday themes of architecture, landscape, gardens and the human form. His works are more often than not colourful, echoing the prints and drawings which he develops in parallel with his sculpture. Head of the Stairs challenges the landscape in which it is placed - a portion of the artist's urban environment visits the country.