Zadok Ben-David

Description

Looking Back, a 5.1 metre high bronze, depicts a walking female figure turning as her attention is momentarily caught by a smaller figure behind her. Both figures are rendered in silhouette, their bodies composed of multiple small human forms, all differently posed and delicately drawn. Looking Back can be seen as a continuation of the theme of 'Innerscapes' — inner worlds existing within the individual subject — that in recent years has won the Yemen-born Israeli British sculptor a growing international reputation. Zadok Ben-David's recent works, of which Looking Back is a fine example, tread nimbly between drawing and sculpture. The tiny bodies within bodies offer a wealth of engaging visual incident, while the scale of the main figure lends a wit and grandeur to a twisting pose not normally associated with large-scale sculpture.

In a recent conversation, Zadok Ben-David commented on how advances in optics during the Enlightenment period have progressed to such a point that much scientific and technological 'information' is now invisible to the naked eye. Looking Back lends form to these observations while resisting any heavy-handed proselytizing. Zadok Ben-David's work is rich in such allusions to science and the natural world, but its success is not predicated upon prior knowledge of structural systems.

Looking Back has a lightness of touch that could only be the product of a refined visual sensibility. We see it as sculpture, but it is clearly grounded in the discipline of drawing and the respectful observation of nature; above all, it is a meditation on humanity.