Steven Gregory

Description

Norman Tebbit's maxim that we were all to get on our bicycles in order to find work has been taken to extremes by this fish out of water. Artists are renowned for putting together unlikely elements, and they have the power to realise the impossible in terms of their chosen material, in this case bronze. Fish on a Bicycle, out of his element, is as much a buffoon as Toad of Toad Hall. He has the appearance of showing off, but also exhibits a self-conscious air, conspicuous in the curl of his lip and the direction of his eye.

Bronze is the material of monuments, of serious art. Not only has Steven Gregory chosen to subvert the sculptural elements of fish and of bike by putting them into an unlikely and faintly ridiculous relationship and situation, but he has also subverted the material in this context. Bronze, however, gives the sculpture status. Details in fish-scale and fin would not appear as crisp in fibreglass as they do in bronze, and the patina, green for the fish, is applied with a painterly sensitivity. The matt blackness of the bicycle serves, by contrast, to demonstrate the versatility of this wonderful material.

Artistic play, or licence, lies in Gregory's selection of a real bicycle to support its hand-crafted rider. The bicycle has given the sculpture human scale, therefore the fish has human scale and his anthropomorphic nature is accentuated by the introduction of this real element. Having given the fish such status, anything is possible. Movement is implied as fins touch the pedals. This sculpture might well be the start of a long and imagined narrative, different for every viewer. Perhaps this giant among fish found the bicycle thrown into his pond, and decided to have an adventure exchanging water for air and the open road instead of murky depths. It is possible, however, that the role of the sculpture is to make us stay a while, and smile at the possibilities and at the comedy therein.