Jon Isherwood

Description

Jon Isherwood is still relatively new to stone carving. His early sculptures were made in steel - he was a pupil and colleague of Anthony Caro - but in searching for new ways to make sculpture he turned eventually to carving. In this way he has brought a new vision to stone sculpture and is working it in new ways. Following Passages, Origins and Circumstance 1994 (see page 66) he has further developed his sculptural vocabulary. These three working models for larger sculptures have versions in smaller carvings, but all are different. He found these bulbous shapes by making roughly head-shaped or hat-shaped forms in clay, and as they were drying, he hit them hard with his fist. The varying strength and momentum of his striking fist, and where it landed, contributed to the differences in character of each one. The results were these bulging forms, which when translated into stone created earth-bound vessels of great voluptuousness.

The titles evoke feelings of self: in the artist as creator, in us the viewers. In getting us to think about them, to feel or sense them, Isherwood is helping us to understand the sculptures. What we see are three stone pieces carved in seductively beautiful stones. Their contours are redefined by the intense detail in the surfaces; the vacuous interiors are not what they seem. Isherwood has added further to the individual nature of these related sculptures through working the stone differently each time. He revels in the sensuous nature of curve and dip, of colour, and in texture and how these may be altered by his intervention.