Bronze, Steel and Stone sculpture trail by Everard Read at Riverhill Gardens.

www.everardlondon.com/exhibition/111/

Deborah Bell is one of South Africa’s most eminent contemporary artists. In her iconography she draws from a range of cultures including African, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, early Christian and European … as well as a range of philosophies, especially the Buddhist preoccupation with stillness and the shedding of attachment and the ego.

Bell recalls the genesis of this large-scale bronze sculpture like this…. “About 20 years ago, when I was moving out to the country from Johannesburg, I had the opportunity to buy a beautiful wooden mokoro (ma-kaw-raw - a type of canoe commonly used in the Okavango Delta, Botswana), which I thought would be perfect on the dam on my new property. Over the next few years, the boat appeared in many forms - etchings, paintings, and drawings. Carrying a single figure, they became the vehicle for some spiritual journey. I had always been interested in the form of a single figure standing at the back of such a canoe or gondolier - the aesthetics of it stirring some deep recognition and resonance within.

I decided to make a sculpture of this and set about forming the boat out of a steel armature and cement. I had two young Great Dane puppies that loved to climb into the structure - and the idea of two boats was born - one carrying a dog leading the other, with a standing figure. For some reason I didn’t complete the work at that time and the project was put on hold until returned to it a few years later. As I completed the work, my father died, and while standing at his funeral I realised that I had made that work for him, that this was his crossing, and that the timing of finishing the work was perfect. The dog was the guardian of his spirit, leading him across the river to the afterlife. The figure emerging out of his head was his greater self, spirit, or soul.

Sculpture #8 | Olivia Musgrave | The Fates