Alison Wilding, Cluster, 2004

2004

Medium

Patinated copper and ceramic

Dimensions

4 × 29 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-154022

In Cluster, two heavy patinated shallow, dish-like forms, spun from copper, hold 'dead, crumpled, ceramic flowers' that resemble the embers of a camp fire, or burnt sacrificial offerings. The flowers were glazed in a kiln, and thus they have in fact been subject to high temperatures. Wilding began to patinate copper in 1983, when she made two small wall pieces, Grey Beak, 1983 and Green Beak, 1983. But with Cluster, she asked a foundry to patimate the bowls for her, one in a greenish hue and the other grey. She wanted the patination to reduce the materiality of the bowls, so that they looked as insubstantial as the flowers. The title, as always, gives a clue to the reading of the sculpture. It refers less to the crumpled flowers resting in the bowls, than to those clusters found when looking up into the starry sky - the constellations.