Internationally renowned artists Sally Fawkes and Richard Jackson are exhibiting their glass sculptures at Buscot Park in Oxfordshire.
Working independently as individual artists as well as together in collaboration, they create unique, exquisitely crafted glass art sculpture from their studio in Stroud. Their works include small-scale sculptures for indoors, three of which are in the permanent collection at Buscot Park, and monumental sculptures for outdoors.
Exhale is an exhibition of seven outdoor sculptures, chosen by the artists in response to their specific locations in the gardens. It is their first solo outdoor exhibition in the UK, and Buscot Park’s first temporary exhibition of contemporary art.
The sculptures will be displayed throughout the gardens, and the artists have chosen each piece to respond to the different vistas, atmosphere, and planting in the gardens. For example, in Harold Peto’s Water Gardens, visitors will find Flow (Land and Water), situated at a crossing of paths and aligned with Peto’s flowing water channel, while Living Column, inspired by a 250-year-old sycamore tree, continues an avenue of trees and echoes a nearby fir tree. The more intimate setting of the walled garden encourages close looking at Oblique Echoes II, which encourages us to explore how our sense of sight connects with our thought processes.
Two dramatic large-scale pieces, Aspire and Inhale Exhale punctuate the south lawn in front of the house. Inhale Exhale expresses a single moment of poise, a pause, to breathe in and out and experience a moment of calm. The title of the exhibition, Exhale, recognises the positive contribution that art and nature, brought together in outdoor sculpture, can make to our mental health and wellbeing.
This temporary exhibition complements the contemporary sculpture in the permanent collection at Buscot Park. Jackson Fawkes are already represented in the Faringdon Collection with their indoor sculptures Resolving Significance and Degrees of Separation VIII by Sally Fawkes and First Intention VII by Richard Jackson. There are also several large twenty-first century sculptures in the gardens at Buscot Park, including a hexagonal sundial obelisk designed by Mark Lennox-Boyd; Sycamore Seeds by David Watkinson; Large Vessel, a dry slate vase by Joe Smith; and Ayla by Pete Moorhouse. There is no additional charge to visitors for the exhibition, and visitors will receive a free sculpture trail leaflet with information about and locations for the sculptures.
Sally Fawkes and Richard Jackson said: “We are honoured to be exhibiting a collection of glass sculptures at Buscot Park for 2024. We have worked closely with Amy Lim, the curator of the Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, to carefully site our individually selected sculptures within the different vistas amongst the varied plantings. Each sculpture creates unique perspectives for visitors to encounter within the gardens and parklands.”
The exhibition runs until September 30th.
