The Last of …………….. (temporary sculpture 2) 2011
I grew up in Birmingham, England and attended the Moseley Road School of Art from 11 to 18 years of age. We often frequented the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the painting “The Last of England” by Ford Maddox Brown made a significant impression.
“In 2011 reflecting on his own life with its farewells and departures, he created ‘Temporary Sculpture 2 “The Last of…..” ’.The temporary Sculpture is a sailing boat made of a wooden box which could be used for packing. On the sides are signifiers of something precious; grape earrings, coins or just bling? The copper nails through stainless steel washers conjur rivets used in shipbuilding together with coinage . The sailing boat is like a child’s boat as opposed to an actual model boat. The photographs/ sails reference images of North South. Animals are often part of relocations, as in Noah’s Ark; here they serve also as evoking childhood.
The paraphrenalia of relocation is very much in evidence. The two objects inside the box are symbols of Consett Bay – a ceramic cast of shoreline coral and a very raw unidentifiable biological mass. The bird’s nesting box at the top of the mast could also references home and family and the precariousness of it all?” Curator, Queen’s Park Gallery, Barbados.
From the exhibition ‘1.1.11 ETC’ at the Queen’s Park Gallery, Barbados.
Photography, William St James Cummins
Nick was born in Birmingham, England in 1953 and completed his Bachelor of Fine Art at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1977 followed by a Fellowship in Painting at Sunderland Polytechnic in 1978.
