Wendy Ramshaw

Description

Wendy Ramshaw's gate is placed at the entrance to the sculpture estate in Goodwood. Its circular form, full of abstract line and symbol, bears the number five, representing the first five years of the foundation. Ramshaw designed a key-ring for this anniversary on which the design of the gate is based. The change of scale between the 4.5 cm key-ring and the gate is almost a hundredfold, but the forms have been little altered in the translation, other than to accommodate a roughly central opening.

It is as a jeweler that Wendy Ramshaw is best known, but in recent years she has developed a body of work on a much larger scale: gates and screens that are of very complex design and that, like her jewelery, are always exquisitely made. Gate is no exception, and its linear rhythms curve and chase within the circular perimeter. The composition is completely balanced, and the shapes created in the voids between the lines are of equal weight and equal importance to our reading of the whole. The larger of the circular motifs - the one closer to the perimeter of the circle - was the hole for a chain or loop to attach keys to the ring. Here it is seen off-vertical, which disguises the figure five as it is absorbed in the overall sweeps of line and incident. The matte aluminum finish of the gate complements the grays found in the flint walls between which it stands, the whole seen in great contrast to its green background of trees in high summer, muted browns in winter. Shadows cast by the gate are equally engaging, and allow the viewer to enjoy distortions of the design which change according to the time of day. The opening mechanism is electronically operated, either from a remote control device or from telephoned instruction communicated from the Foundation Centre. The fact that Gate has no hand-operated opening device keeps the design pure.