Alison Wilding, Floodlight, 2001

2001

Medium

Cast acrylic

Dimensions

8 × 8 cm

Edition

number 9/12 from an edition of 12, plus 3 artist's proofs

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-153555

‘Small Sculpture is not made to be placed pn pedestals. Both by convention and nature it seems set to be unobtrusive, refusing to command the space that it is in. This seems obvious enough and yet it is not quite that straightforward. An object like Floodlight might be small in scale; it might sit on a sill rather than hold centre-stage. It is not in spite of but because it does not demand to be looked at that it becomes more rather than less compelling. What looks like yellow resin or even amber is in fact cast acrylic, a translucent material that holds the light, entrapping a luminous, oval flacked with tiny bits of carbon. Like Solenoid (2015) another sculpture about the same size, wound around with string, it is hard to say what they are. They seem almost like prosthetic extensions of the han’s imaginary, projecting a sense of presence that far exceeds their actual size. The object doesn’t have to be obviously ‘hand-made’ in order for it to have this effect. Its singular intrusiveness, finally, is all the more palpable because it is unexpected. This work was included in a group exhibition at Rhodes and Mann in 2003, in a review of the exhibition published in Frieze magazine, Morgan Falconer described the work as ‘powerfully evocative… a small, black, oval object enclosing a window of syrupy, luminescent yellow, it was less a stadium light than a lighthouse beam….throwing a sense of seclusion, light and shadow over aseries of drawings by Ana Hatherly’ The classical names for amber, Latin electrum and Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron), are connected to a term ἠλέκτωρ (ēlektōr) meaning "beaming Sun". According to myth, when Phaëton son of Helios (the Sun) was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees, and their tears turned to electron/amber. Wilding’s most recent print is called Phaeton (2016) and also relates to the myth of Phaeton who rode his sun chariot too close to the sun and then scorched the earth causing the death of many people. This image of the chariot is also present in the recent sculpture Re-re-re-tread (also 2016). An edition of Floodlight is in the British Council Collection. This work was manufactured by Blanson Acrylic Engineers.