Man of Stones: Introduced by director Bill Jackson

Henham Park Barns

16/11/2019 16:30 - 17:00

Bill Jackson has been photographing Laurence Edward’s sculpture and documenting his studio and foundry for the last three years and has made a film looking back at a year of studio production centred on the making of Man Of Stones, to be sited at the new sculpture park at the Sainsbury Centre UEA Norwich. The result is a stunning piece of visual poetry that explores the creation and development of the sculpture.

Filmed in black and white and on hand held cameras, Jackson captures the energy of Edwards at work, visually he almost becomes one of the sculptures he is making. Edwards taps in to our deep and ancient relationships with ourselves and the landscape, trapping it in his work for people to see and to remember.

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Laurence Edwards trained at Canterbury College of Art from 1985-88 and then at the Royal College of Art (1988-90). Edwards' primary interests are in the male human form, anatomy and metamorphosis, especially regarding the change undergone by this shape during improvisational moulding and casting techniques. To make his sculptures Edwards first works in clay, these are then transferred into a wax version by way of a latex shell and it is at this point, when most sculptors depart, that he begins again.

Laurence Edwards studied bronze casting techniques in India and now uses the bronze casting itself as part of the language of his artistic expression. Unique among sculptors, and certainly those that use the figure as their principle language, is Laurence’s association with the act and art of bronze making. Bronze casting is an alchemic process, passed on like DNA from generation to generation. Edwards has studied bronze casting more than most and built his first foundry on the Suffolk Marshes where you can still find ancient ingots of bronze squirrelled into the soil by those who once travelled the country plying smelting as a trade.

Edwards is uniquely alone in this fertile territory moving seamlessly across those perceived borders. The vitality that is preserved as a consequence of having a hand to the entire process is evident in the finished work,

Bill Jackson studied at Coventry University School Of Art and Birmingham institute Of Art and Design. He works across mediums from Film and Photography to Multi Media. Bill is an international award winning photographer and film maker having recently shown at the Venice Biennale and winning Gold and Silver at the Moscow and Tokyo International Foto Awards respectfully. His works has been seen in major Galleries and Museums worldwide for over 35 years. He now lives and works in Suffolk.

 

www.billjackson.photography/man-of-stones

 

Film Art