Jon Buck

Description

In the past three to four years Jon Buck has sought to simplify his way of working. Leaving behind his earlier complex multiple forms, brought together in expressive compositions, he has found a more direct voice in fundamental subject-matter. Goodwood Goddess is a a prime example of this way of working, and is closely related to Back to the Beginning 2000, another bird form with certain human attributes, which was made for Bronze: Contemporary British Sculpture, an exhibition in Holland Park, London, as part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's Millennium celebrations.

Goodwood Goddess has grown from a family of iconic maquettes that Buck made when developing these new ideas. He was looking for simple, direct forms and found them in religious amulets of primitive cultures such as the Maya and Inca, and also the figurines of the Etruscan people. The reduction of form to simple line and volume gave his ideas direct expression, and he developed a series of imagined creatures and goddesses, some human, some bird-like, others based on animals - real and fantastical.

The simplicity of these forms has allowed Buck to experiment with surface, and he has variously embossed, painted, gilded and engraved the figures with abstract and occasionally basic figurative motifs repeated across the body of the sculpture.

In looking back to the beginning of civilisations, to a time when animal monuments were worshipped, Buck is also considering the human need for cultural icons. At the beginning of the twenty-first century we too have a need for such icons, but our subjects are diverse and many are unholy.