Page 30 - Studio International - November 1968

of the first is seen against the second, the second is made against the below, 1½, 1967
third. The following year, I made Step, which simplifies the painted steel, 28+ x 130 x 44 in.
image, realizes it in terms of essential features. I don't mean minimal- facing page, above, Three drawings, 1968
izes it or reduces it.
facing page, below left, Tregannu II, 1967
What was back of this development was my deep interest—a con-
fibreglass, 15+ x 36 x 31 in.
tinuing one—in the problems of edge and volume. Visual, sculptural,
facing page, below right, Tregannu III, 1968
and emotional factors are involved. I was looking for a way to imply
fibreglass, 41+ in. diameter
volume, to indicate it without stating mass. Ordinarily, we associate
certain visual configurations with certain masses. Material apart, we
have the sense of particular weight, density, and bulk. My interest
is to give the experience of more than is there.
It's important for me, in this connection, to make a clear, unfussy
statement of form. The form is literally there; there is no illusionism
or other trickery in stating it. I want the form to be essential to the
effect of more from less, but the form itself must be self-sufficient,
sculpturally pertinent—apt. Day, a painted steel piece I made in
1966, is probably the clearest image of what I mean. A side issue, a
dependent one, was my interest in sculpture structures where space
seemed to invade or erode form. In Split 1966, I preserved the sil-
houette, the thinness of form, and used the sharply demarked edges
to make the sense of mass tenuous.
This led me to think of interior or negative volume. In Echo,
made in 1967, I used roundness in various senses to contain space, to
repel it, to cut into it, and to be cut by it. Surfaces emphasized the
shell-like quality of the form, but also flatness, a foil to the various
rondures. The keen edges are important too. And the squatness, the
denial of verticality. This piece relates to Day, deals with analo-
gous problems, offers some solutions in reverse.
Of course, I have been thinking too about volume as a developing
form, though not a biomorphic or natural one. And of developing
emergent form in relation to the opening out or compression of the
space between. In 1965, I'd done Maquette in cast aluminium. want in my recent fibre-glass sculptures, the Trengannu series—it's
There, though the piece was small, the scale was large. It was the a State in Malaya—is a plural field image. Theoretically, with a field
beginning of works conceived in generous scale; to make it large, for image, numbers can be increased as space permits. The foreseeable
instance as a sculpture in a public place, would not, I feel, be a reasonable consequence will be a heightening of the basic effect. The
violation of its capability. The scale of invention is like that of Day. placement relates to the size of the elements; what I am after is the
Maquette is important to my work in another way. It was one of a activation of the spaces between, so that the space is the tension
series of small sculptures that began to deal with repeated forms. between forms. The number of elements in these recent sculptures is
This impulse to conceive sculptures as patterns of identical units has pre-determined. The actual placement is a matter of trial and error,
become stronger in my recent work. though, of course, I have a close idea of what is properly possible.
One of the pieces to come out of the small aluminium series that In these pieces, I want the element to have an intrinsic interest,
deals with the repetition of form is One and a half (1967). Where but to have a still great interest in combination with itself. Incident-
Maquette had an implied hub, One and a half has a literal ally, these fibre-glass sculptures were also conceived with the possi-
centre from which it comes—or to which it goes; but that centre, too, bility in mind of the elements being floated, as a random group,
is implied, in the sense that it has no visible physical existence each anchored at a fixed distance from the others.
beyond its being the scene between the elements.
Over the years, your materials of work have changed. Is that in response to the
The pieces in the series, say from One and a half on, seems to me specially evolution of your ideas or is it for sheerly practical reasons?
interesting in that they abandon a base and, even more important, an axis. Truth to material has never been very much my concern. I have
Do they have a particular viewing point? What determines the number of used materials simply as a means to get what I want. The recent
elements? The placement of them? You obviously want pressure on the space sculptures were done during a visit to Singapore, where I had
between. Is the final determination made by trial and error? the opportunity of working in a fibre-glass factory. It was useful to
They don't have a specific viewing point. The elements are on the see fibre-glass being used in an industrial context. Out of that
ground. Different positions and different levels—heights—of viewing experience came the conception of the pieces; strictly speaking, the
give varying effects. I try to control these effects by size and posi- practicalness involved can't be separated from the conception, can
tioning of the elements. The possibilities are my concern; they are also it?
the sculptural experience. The unfolding of the effects as the What interests me in fibre-glass, though I haven't yet used all the
observer moves around is in one sense the whole sculpture. In another qualities I like, is particularly a translucency, as opposed to the
sense, the sculptures are non-evolving. The primary impact is the transparency of perspex. The light filters though the near-opaque-
forms in pattern, the relationship of elements—the same element ness, giving the objects an immaterial quality. It goes back to an old
repeated—and of elements with space. The single impact dominates, concern of mine.
it seems, though one does get modifications of effect by moving
around. Do you find that your methods of work have changed? They have changed, no
Before One and a half I was using one to three elements. The doubt, to the extent that you don't work directly upon a material at first, as you
result was a unitary experience—you experience one thing. What I did when you were making wood sculpture. More must go into the plan. What