Page 44 - Studio International - September 1965

1 for that matter Turnbull. Similarly the human body that is suggested. one is aware of the more intense.
Metamorphic Image Stage II
Pine and Formica offers him none of the inspiration it affords Henry emotional quality in Startup. His work is deeply
40 in. High Moore. or younger sculptors such as Armitage or involved in environmental experience and memory.
27 in. Wide
Chadwick. and a wide range of native artists from ·1 want to create something,' he says. 'which has an
2 Ayrton to Frink. Whilst there are elements of nostalgia image and a reality which I can't define in any other
Separation 1964
Pine and Mahogany in his artistic processes. they are vague and complex. way. The reason I do it is to externalise for myself an
Used as a model for not an open lament for lost worlds or a search for the emotional concept.'
Stoneware cast
7 ft. High secrets of natural or moral harmony. He does not It is a creative act resulting from a kind of desperation;
stem from a Rodinesque or a Brancusi tradition-seeing the quality I describe as ·expressionist' lies in the
the world in man's image, or in a grain of sand. powerful gestures of his sculpture. a controlled
His personal taste is catholic-he mentions Brancusi. determinism in the urgent need to comment. to
Giacometti. Noguchi. Chillida. as artists he admires. synthesise experience which cannot be contained in
By nature he is a 'quietist'. a lone wolf. He has never concise thought or the imitation of ready-made
felt the need of identity with a current style or sought imagery.
the support of group activity. ·1 don't feel the need to Thus the latest works are a fascinating mixture of
talk to painters or sculptors about what I do.· seemingly simple shapes which. as though unwilling
The shapes. particularly in his new sculpture. have the to sum up experience with any restrictive finality. he
harsh angularity one finds in Constructivist experiments then 'breaks up· into variations stemming from the
of the early part of the century. Of his British con­ original. yet completely transforming it. ·1 operate on a
temporaries there is something. perhaps. in common fairly uncomplicated level as a person. I'm not really
with Caro. Geoffrey Clarke. even Paolozzi. except that aware how or why things influence me.' Yet his work
Startup is a much more withdrawn personality. express­ indicates that intuitively he cannot accept life or
ing himself in smaller. more personal. less 'public' experience as simple and uncomplicated; or to put it
shapes. In his concern with urban sensations there another way, he does not believe things are only what
may be a point of contact with the newer generations of they seem. He has always been interested in and
English sculptors. working in painted metal. Yet once influenced by African sculpture. precisely because these

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