Tony Cragg

Description

Weighing a staggering 15 tonnes, one would expect Bulb to be cumbersome, conveying mass and density over lightness and grace. Whilst it's solid presence is remarkable, the piece is imbued with action and gesture, as Cragg, once again, succeeds in creating movement in a static entity. "Bulb is a pumped-up pale green form sagging forward as if the air was rushing out of it. One of Cragg's Rational Beings series, its structure is composed of perfectly piled up circles such that it is symmetrical from one angle, asymmetrical from another." As Cragg states, "the forms associated with these kinds of variable axis infer an energetic dynamic, the kind of constant material condition found in the whirlings of tornadoes or the eddies of the bath drain"

Although twice the height of an onlooker, Bulb, as it leans forward like a protective mother, gives the feeling that it has been carved on an intensely human scale. With a note of honesty, Bulb retains and portrays many of the natural properties of the stone from which it is created, both colouration and density, while simultaneously transcending the material - the ripples of the swelling form seem more like the rolling bulges of a rubber space hopper when sat and bounced upon by a child, than the contours of an inert stone. The lolloping form, which seems to be trying to maintain its balance and posture, appears to be both buoyant and animated. Cragg believes that with his stacked pieces, "basic questions of what it means to be geometric, amorphous or even representational start to arise", as is clear with this piece.