• Call-in Numbers: 917-633-8191 / 201-880-5508

  • Now Playing

    Title

    Artist

    Hold by Antony Gormley Image copyright Antony Gormley
    Image caption Sir Antony Gormley has been experimenting with clay during lockdown, producing works such as Hold

    A solitary figure resting its head between tightly wound arms, clasping bent knees and shoulders. Toes curled inwards. As lockdown continues in the UK, British sculptor Sir Antony Gormley, like many artists, is documenting life during the coronavirus pandemic.

    "I wanted to make this self-contained body, looking at itself, at the resource that one has within oneself," Gormley, whose work often explores the human body's relationship to space, told BBC News.

    "A whole body a bit like a clenched fist, internal and attending to within."

    The sculpture - Hold - is a small folded figure in dark clay, made during lockdown and shared online via London's White Cube gallery.

    "I suppose that, for me, was trying to make an objective equivalent for the state that we're all in," the artist, best known for creating large-scale sculptures such as the Angel of the North, in Tyne and Wear, said.

    "Most of us live our lives in ridiculous obligation to a machine that… is always telling us to do more, have more, go to more places, make more money.

    "This is a wonderful time in which those imperatives are loosened.

    "And we have to ask ourselves: What do we care about? What do we value? What do we love?"

    Slip by Antony Gormley Image copyright Antony Gormley
    Image caption Gormley repaired this older figure, Slip, which he says feels evocative of the sense that "we've slipped up... we've lost a period of time"

    The Covid-19 outbreak has seen sweeping changes across the art world, as galleries have been forced to close their doors to visitors and the cultural calendar of exhibitions and talks has dissipated.

    But artists have been swift to adapt to the situation, finding new ways to share work with their audiences online.

    Last week, street artist Banksy posted images of his latest work on Instagram - a series of his signature stencilled rats causing mayhem in his bathroom during the lockdown.

    And David Hockney opted to share 10 of his most recent works on iPad, from isolation in Normandy.

    Damien Hirst, meanwhile, created rainbow art featuring coloured butterfly wings, one his best-known motifs, that can be downloaded and put in windows in tribute to NHS workers.

    A close-up of Banksy's recent artwork at home Image copyright Banksy/PA Media
    Image caption "My wife hates it when I work from home," Banksy wrote as he shared a new piece on Instagram

    Earlier this month, Gormley joined other artists, including Tracey Emin and most recently Sarah Morris, in contributing to a new series of online artist diaries, hosted on White Cube's Instagram account.

    "Artists are used to great stretches of time spent working alone, and I think to allow the wider audience to glimpse into their world can be quite uplifting," said the gallery's artistic director Susan May.

    Gormley - who usually works in two busy studios in London and Northumberland - felt it was important to represent the "quieter, smaller" aspects of life in his diary, which have come to the fore during the crisis.

    "The shelling of peas, the darning of socks, the sort of thing my mum used to do sitting and watching the television... knitting," he explained.

    Speaking from his home and workspace in rural Norfolk, the artist noted how he was surrounded by his wife, artist Vicken Parsons, making a hat for their son, Ivo, and daughter, Paloma, seated at the table making a dress for her niece.

    The sculptor's seven daily posts also document his first six handmade plates, a progression from the bowls he has been producing since taking an evening pottery course four years ago, alongside the process of making glazes and mending some of his older works.

    Sir Antony Gormley repairs his early work One Apple Image copyright Antony Gormley
    Image caption Gormley prepares to repair one of his early works, One Apple (1982), that was partly trampled during his recent retrospective at the Royal Academy in London
    Successfully mended parts of Antony Gormley's early work One Apple Image copyright Antony Gormley
    Image caption Four apples from the work - which features 53 pieces recording the stages of a season's growth - have been successfully mended

    He has also been experimenting with clay, saying it was an ideal time to play with the material "at a scale more or less on the kitchen table".

    "This is a wonderful time because it means that everybody is living the life of an artist, which is essentially making up your day as you want," he said.

    "And doing things for yourself or things that seem the right thing to do for you."

    There has been a surge of new schemes launched by artists urging people to make art at home and share their lockdown creations online.

    Comedian and artist Noel Fielding has started a virtual online art club, with recent themes including "Things we love about Italy", and is sharing his own drawings for inspiration.

    "In many ways I was ready for the lockdown," the artist, from Peckham, in south London, explained, outlining that much of his practice centres around domestic spaces.

    Ward maintains a studio for larger works, but has taken isolation as an opportunity for sustained work on a series of paintings made in his garden shed - with "fruitful" results.

    "I think things [in the paintings] are becoming looser and more open, perhaps in odd contrast to our reality of being enclosed and isolated," he said.

    Meanwhile, artists from all sectors of the industry are continuing to make and sell work despite the ongoing crisis.

    Tens of thousands of artists have backed East Sussex-based painter Matthew Burrow's Artist Support Pledge - where contributors are selling work for £200 and promising to spend the same on another's work once they make £1,000. Scrolling through contributions on Instagram reveals some selling daily drawings made during lockdown.

    Read More


    Reader's opinions

    Leave a Reply