The Lifers Sculpture Group, all students of the Sunningwell School of Art, some of them retired professionals, are at various stages of proficiency. This is their second group exhibition and it reveals not only the progress of these artists but also their multiple styles and interpretations of the human face, from a tiny cellist lost in his own art, the beautiful “Kanchen” bedecked with her jewelry, to a terrifying medusa-like creation. The other plaques and busts reveal not only the variety of human expression but of techniques and artistic imagination.
Not only are these artists showing portraits but also demonstrate that the art of using the human form as a subject for artistic representation is not dead even in our post-postmodern world. As with their busts, their intentions for making sculpture may not be to convey an Ideal Form, but instead, to work with life models in a more collaborative mode. They look to the modernist sculptor, Rodin, for guidance when he said that a life model creates a “correlative inspiration” for use to express a “sentiment, thought or experience”. This puts the sculptor’s aims at the fore.
The exhibition can be seen by going through Summertown Library into the garden beyond and is open during library hours.
www.turrillsculpturegarden.org.uk for more information