"My natural medium for making is wood. Finding forms that flow from the character of the material ; moist or dry, easily splits or not, its volume and shape, all contribute possibilities. Some forms that emerge are not dependent on their being wood and lend their form for another material such as bronze or iron. Only when I could afford this expensive process did I take the step of translating wood originals into the hard durable bronze and iron." David Nash
Since beginning his career in the 1970s, David Nash has found wood to be his material of choice. Working with timber from various continents, he has always refused to fell healthy trees and allows himself to be guided by the natural forms of the wood. Nash has thus developed a visually rich body of work based on a desire to “catch forms” as they present themselves, in order to reveal and emphasise them, sometimes using fire to char part or all of the sculpture’s surface.
One day, curious to transform the negative space hollowed out inside a tree stump by a chainsaw into a positive form, David Nash decided to cast this void in order to capture its beauty. This led to the creation of the bronze sculpture Inside/Outside (2011), a larger version of which, Night Form (2026), is featured in this exhibition. For Nash, a bronze sculpture can emerge from a wooden one that has been “put to rest” in the former chapel (Capel Rhiw) in Blaenau Ffestiniog, which the artist has converted into a studio. A stroll through the chapel can spark the idea for a bronze: the wood is examined from every angle and reworked before being moulded and then cast. Several of the sculptures on display here are the result of these recent observations at Capel Rhiw: the Celtic Column, the Cross Column and the Black and Light Cross.
Another important stage in the creation of these sculptures is the final patina. Whilst Nash’s bronzes were always black at the outset – their surface resembling burnt wood, to the point of being mistaken for it – they now also take on shades of brown, green and even bright red thanks to the patina. Galerie Lelong has been collaborating with David Nash for a quarter of a century to showcase and develop not only his sculptural work but also his remarkable drawings, as well as his stencils, which he produces using a distinctive artisanal technique.
David Nash (born in 1945 in Esher, England) lives and works in North Wales. He has been a member of the Royal Academy since 1999. His work, which is widely represented in major museums across Europe, America, Australia and Japan, has been the subject of retrospectives at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Kew Gardens in England, as well as at the National Museum in Cardiff and the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne.
