Posts by: Joe Venables
An exhibition bringing together work from Hugo Powell's whole career for the first time.
A short essay by Powell describing his working practice and approach to sculpting.
Please get in touch if you have any queries or would like further information.
Learn more about Powell's life and work including a biographical note written by the sculptor a year before his death.
1988
"The behavioural patterns of mayflys and dragonflys were much in mind..."
1979
"A celebration of a variety of unglamourous but essentially benign and exuberant creatures..."
1984
"... the arrival of the apple wood immediately suggested the theme of the popular TV programme of ballroom dancing..."
1989
"Composite wood carving of oak, ivy and driftwood with a water-gilt finish..."
1983
"Heaving of sea with waves that do not break after a storm." — O.E.D.
1976
"The material itself was the beginning of this idea and was the result of having to saw off the bottom of a large trunk of yew..."
1988
"More recently, the theme of rebirth from any form of suffering has become increasingly important to me..."
1975
"A mollusc presents itself to human perception as two entities: an architectural structure of mathematical subtlety and a living form that is protean, visceral and sensuous..."
1980
"My inspiration was the memory of seeing schools of dolphins while at sea in the mediterranean..."
1975
"This carving celebrates my earliest conscious memory of something compellingly beautiful — probably a swan or a large gull, on a lake..."
1978
"A broken fragment of the bottom of an old-fashioned wine bottle fixed to a cog wheel fixed to a cylinder of wood stained black..."
1991
"Suggested by seeing the fallen flower of a magnolia soulangia floating in a backwater of the Thames..."
1979
"As a young man I rented a studio, the loft of which was inhabited by a colony of fancy pigeons..."
Completed 2012 Bronze Height: 27" Powell's penultimate sculpture, carved in wood over the course of several years and cast in bronze by Pangolin Foundry. In the collection of The de…
1978
"A celebration of the mating displays of many species of bird, such as the English Crested Grebe or the exotic Lyre Birds of New Guinea..."
1972
"The overall spherical shape, which was first formed in clay on a revolving template, is pierced in various directions and at different angles, to give the maximum of changing effects of light and shade with the movments of the sun..."
1984
"Much of my work begins as an exploratory playing with shapes and materials until a theme emerges..."
1956
"This is one of the first of my abstract works, and one of the first in my own individual style..."
1983
"A more elaborate variation of an earlier piece Mask For Ariel (1974)..."
1986
"A choreographic suggestion for a ballet yet to be devised..."
1986
"I feel there is a special kind of cosmic solemnity in the first vocal exchanges between a very young child and its mother..."
1990
"Welded and bolted metal scrap including a hay fork, a pair of basin supports and one for a toilet cistern, various gutter supports, vine eyes and a floor mounting for machinery..."
1988
"The offspring of an aardvark and a porcupine...?"
1990
"Welded and bolted metal scrap, including old decorative hinges, tool handles, a window catch and vine eyes..."
1990
"Welded and bolted metal scrap. Parts from an old water pump, window catches, and a plumbing juncture as the base..."
1978
"Bone fragment mounted on a scrap of broken chair leg and a plastic disc..."
1978
"A project for a gigantic megalomaniac monument that I devoutly hope will never be realised..."
1987
"The emotional vertigo preceding the act of self immolation..."
Works in a wide variety of wood including Yew, Mulberry, Alder, Beech and Walnut.
Sculptures in alabaster, Reigate stone, limestone, Bath stone and Carrera marble.
Powell occasionally had works cast in bronze, generally for private commissions.
A collection of works made using found objects ‘hijacked from their normal usage’.
Sculptures in other materials.
Powell explored the theme of the Phoenix for over 25 years.