Glimpse of Light & Darkness

The Orangery, Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden
Willoughby Gerrish
Thirsk, Yorkshire
6 July – 30 September 2024

Glimpse of Light & Darkness, a new exhibition for Willoughby Gerrish at their Thirsk Hall gallery, The Orangery, focuses on a series of small-scale sculptures, made from found wood including bark, bough, branches and offshoots. Each artwork has been hand crafted and gilded with 23.5ct gold leaf.

These works are drawn from and influence my large-scale public art works, most recently The Gilded Elm (2023) a 6m tall, preserved trunk of one of the Preston Park Twins, elms that have stood in Preston Park, Brighton for so long that they are considered amongst the oldest English elms in the world. For this memorial work, I reclaimed the elm, felled due to Dutch elm disease, with a signature gilding of the internal form of the tree. This continues my ongoing interest in nature, realised in works from Ambush, New Forest (2000) and Resuscitare, Mottisfont (2013), to Rapture, Nymans (2016) and Eurydice Prevails, University of Nottingham (2019). The use of gilding aims to place a focus on elements, contexts and/or people and particular places while appropriating the value of ‘gold’ to elevate, celebrate, honour and acknowledge.

These studio works are more formal sculptural works, exploring form, shape, and scale while suggesting a recognition and response to the Anthropocene - human’s significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.