Visit David Nash at Kew - A Natural Gallery:
Open until Sunday 14 April 2013
David Nash, one of the UK’s most productive
sculptors, is exhibiting his work at Kew Gardens. The exhibition includes
sculptures, installations, drawings and film in place throughout the Gardens,
glasshouses and exhibition spaces. From April to September 2012, Nash worked
at Kew on a ‘wood quarry’, creating new pieces for the exhibition using trees
from the Gardens that had come to the end of their natural life.These new works are on display in the
Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, the Wood Quarry as well as a
stunning piece in the Nash Conservatory.
Exhibition supported by Xstrata:
An evolving exhibition:
Come and see David Nash at Kew: A Natural
Gallery, an evolving exhibition from a celebrated British artist.
In a career spanning 40 years, David Nash
has carved sculptures from wood, many of them monumental in scale. After
carving, some pieces are then partially burned to produce a charred surface.
His main tools are a chainsaw and an axe to carve the wood, and then fire to
char it. Through his work, Nash has gained a deep understanding of the
properties of trees.
Nash’s sculpture invites you to reflect on
your relationship with nature in the majestic surroundings of Kew Gardens.
David Nash was born at Esher, Surrey, and
raised with his older brother Chris in Weybridge, Surrey where they both
attended preparatory school. Nash spent all his childhood holidays in
Ffestiniog, Wales.Nash helped clear and replant a nearby forest that his
father owned, and also worked for the Commercial Forestry Group. Nash learned
about wood of many kinds and learned he hated planting trees in rows.
Artistic career:
He attended Brighton College from 1959 to
1963, then Kingston College of Art from 1963 to 1967 and the Chelsea School of
Art as a postgraduate from 1969 to 1970. Nash was elected a member of the Royal
Academy of Arts in 1999. In 2004, he was awarded the Order of the British
Empire. A significant exhibition of his work is displayed in theYorkshire
Sculpture Park for a period in 2010/11. Kew Gardens currently has a working
exhibition, launched in June 2012. David Nash is working on site in a 'wood
quarry', his first for 10 years, to create new works at Kew.
Artistic creations:
David Nash is known for works in wood and
shaping living trees. His large wood sculptures are sometimes carved or
partially burned to produce blackening. His main tools for these sculptures are
a chainsaw and an axe to carve the wood and a blowtorch to char the wood.
Nash also makes land art, of which the best
known is Wooden Boulder, begun in 1978. This work involves the journey of a
large wooden sphere from a Welsh mountainside to the Atlantic Ocean. Wooden
Boulder is a large wooden sphere carved by Nash in the North Wales landscape
and left there to weather. Over the years, the boulder has slipped, rolled
and sometime been pushed through the landscape following the course of streams
and rivers until finally it was last seen in the estuary of the river Dwyryd.
It was thought to have been washed out to sea but, after being missing for over
five years, the boulder reappeared in June 2009[citation needed]. Indications
are that it had been buried in sand in the estuary. The sculptor had no idea of
its location, and enjoys the notion that wood which grew out of the land will
finally return to it.
www.davidnash.co.uk
www.davidnash.co.uk
www.wikipedia.co.uk
www.kewgardens.co.uk/davidnash
www.kewgardens.co.uk/davidnash
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