Bruce Gernand

Description

From 1992 to 1994 Bruce Gernand was Henry Moore Fellow in Sculpture at Central St Martin's College of Art and Design. He worked in the college foundry, and the largest sculpture he made there was Hearts-Hide.

Bronze sculptures, unless very small, are cast in sections and welded together. Normally these sections form a 'skin' which, when conjoined, give shape and volume to the whole. Hearts-Hide celebrates this process by revealing in its own form every aspect of its construction.

Bruce Gernand, in his catalogue for his exhibition at the end of the Fellowship, writes: 'Large bronze sculptures tend to be read as a mass, giving an undeniable impression of solidity... In making Hearts-Hide, one of my intentions was to expose these features of production. Taking the notion of segments to an extreme, I cast an excessive 27 pieces which are assembled like a jigsaw puzzle with the majority of the joining left exposed. In fact, flanges, brackets, gaps and welds become integral to the work revealing the process of its making and emphasising the surfaces worked and having undergone transformations. Whilst there is clearly a lot of metal in the object - because of its open form, apertures, piercing and segmentation - its 'monumental' references are suspended by features of fragmentation and fragile thinness of skin.'

This is indeed a vulnerable image, slightly animal in character, but not intentionally so. Through his direct involvement in the casting process, Gernand has sought to understand it fully. Material and process have become the subject of the work itself.