Barry Midgley.
Some years ago whilst crossing the Atlantic I looked down from the plane to see quite a lot of ships crossing between America and Europe. The airplane was probably about five miles up but looking down on the ships I could make out individual containers and features quite easily.
Looking out to the horizon, the sky was that beautiful cobalt blue that you only see from an airplane at height, and I could clearly see the curvature of the earth. I don’t know what arc of curvature I was looking at but I got this overwhelming feeling of how small and fragile our planet really is. This sense of vulnerability is I think, the thing that makes me produce the work I do.
Statement on landscape
My sculptures are often based on landscape themes. They often combine real and artificial elements to emphasise a narrative, and the scale of an individual part is related to its priority within the work.
Many pieces of work are initiated by observation of weather patterns and their influence on the landscape and its habitation.
Other works are prompted by stories read or heard which, for whatever reason and no matter how trivial, catch my attention. As these sculptures progress, I respond to their needs until they feel right and there is some sense of order to their form.
Statement on boat theme.
I use representations of boats as a metaphor for feelings of insecurity and helplessness. Whilst on a boat you are aware of its size and mass, and it still seems to me amazing that something so huge and heavy floats at all. I know the science that keeps it from sinking but it still seems wrong that hundred of tons of boat can float. Sometimes they don't!
Noah's Ark is an image that, for me, represents mans faith over common sense. It too may be a metaphor for a larger story but I admire his optimism. Even when you have the security of a boat things go wrong.
Global warming seems to be part of our life, and floods are going to be something we live with on our ark/planet for the foreseeable future.
I take comfort in the thought that even when we make a complete mess of our ark/planet and make it uninhabitable for our species nature will heal our mistakes. It may take hundreds of thousands of years but one day the ants or the cockroaches or one of the other species that apparently know how to survive a holocaust will inherit a wonderful planet. I hope they know how to build arks and show more sense than mankind ever did.
Statement on Animal Themes.
Throughout my working life I have occasionally returned to producing the odd animal based sculpture. Animals are so much more interesting than humans. They come in an infinite range of shapes and sizes. For example, If you think of a giraffe it has a rather eccentric shape and proportion, but if you start to change these nothing looks right. Shorter neck, back legs the same length as the front. Nothing works as well as the shape and form that the giraffe has evolved. It’s the same with all species. There is a ‘rightness’ to their proportions. And that is the business of sculpture, getting the form ‘right’.