Page 32 - Studio International - March 1966

Tim Scott : recent sculptures

by Frank Whitford

Born London 1937. In common with most of what it is fashionable to call materials — steel, plastic, fibreglass and so on. His
Studied at St Martin's School the 'fourth' generation of sculptors,Tim Scott is under 30 forms are highly individual and personal, and they have
of Art, London.
Has exhibited at Young and came under the influence of Anthony Caro at St. no discernible point of departure either in nature or, as
Contemporaries, 1958, 1959 ; Martin's School of Art, where Scott himself now far as can be seen, the man-made environment. The
ICA 26 Young Sculptors teaches. Like many of his contemporaries he is also a calculated way he uses colour also suggests that in
1961 ; Molton Gallery 1964 ;
New Generation, tough-minded opponent of the mainstream of British certain important respects he approaches his problems
Whitechapel Gallery 1965 ; sculpture. Until the moment, that is, when Caro in a way close to that of the painter.
Paris Biennale 1965. diverted it. Scott took part in the New Generation Crucial for Scott was his contact with Anthony Caro,
Teaches at St Martin's School
of Art. exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery last year. an artist who is now recognised as having made the
Represented in collections of Scott's work, again like that of many of his forward- most decisive contribution to British sculpture since
British Council and looking contemporaries, is immaculate, bright and Moore and Hepworth. Scott found Caro's example and
Stuyvesant Foundation.
colourful, and made from uncompromisingly modern personality both magnetic and liberating. He saw Caro
as having freed sculpture from the confines of the
dominant but declining figurative tradition, and learned
from him that there is an enormous and exciting freedom
simply in knowing that sculpture's only limitations are
whether it carries its intentions or not.
Scott's sculptures are enormous. Four of them fill to
bursting the Waddington Gallery (where they are
currently on view). Because of their sheer size, and
because their forms are either densely packed or
rambling and expansive, their effect is grand, spacious
and very impressive : their presence is immediate.
The work itself is difficult to come to terms with.
Although startlingly vital, it is disturbingly unfamiliar,
unrelated not only to the work of other sculptors, but
also apparently to every natural and man-made object.
It is dependent for many of its shapes and images on
ways of interpreting visual and physical phenomena
which confound normal habits of vision and experience.
Without any power of allusion or association (a negative
January the First 1964
Perspex and fibreglass quality which is difficult to come by) it can attempt to
Height 4 ft 8 in. Length 8 ft 3 in. communicate entirely on its own terms so that the
Width 5 ft
qualities which emerge will be immediate and pure.
Quantic of Sakkara 1965
Not only does Scott work on an unusually large scale,
Blockboard, plywood, aluminium
and steel but his conception is difficult to grasp in its complexity.
Height 7 ft Length 14 ft Width 8 ft
It is, in fact, as if Scott is trying to frustrate habitual
ways of looking at sculpture : certainly he is attempting
to break down the 'graspability' of sculpture. He places
it firmly at one remove from the spectator whilst
succeeding at the same time in describing its three-
dimensional qualities. This he does in new and non-
traditional ways.
Scott has no time, for example, for tactile values — at
least in the normal sense of the word. He assiduously
cultivates anonymous and non-associative surfaces,
intending that neither the surfaces nor the shapes they
describe should reveal the nature of the materials they
are made in. Sculpture is read from its surfaces, and
while in more familiar types of sculpture surface is
made to reveal the mass, weight, density and character
of the stone or wood, in Scott's work the surfaces are
made to carry sculptural qualities in other ways.
Crucial here is his approach to colour. Mass, volume
and space are defined, described or suggested by colour
in an almost painterly way. Colour distinguishes one
surface from another and places a form in space, for
example. Already at one remove from the spectator
because of its scale and the intricacy of its conception,
the use of colour removes it even further and the
sculpture verges on becoming an almost completely
visual experience. q