Wooden Boulder | A film by sculptor David Nash, in association with Culture Colony
Venue: Methodist. Hutch Meeting Room
Date: Sunday 25th September
Time: 2.30pm
Running time: 15 minutes
FREE EVENT
Date: Sunday 25th September
Time: 2.30pm
Running time: 15 minutes
FREE EVENT
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“In October 1978, Nash launched the boulder into the Bronturnor stream near his studio at Capel Rhiw in the slate-mining village of Blaenau Ffestiniog in Snowdonia. For 25 years, switching from crackling film to high-def digital, Nash filmed the boulder, through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night, as it made its way downstream. Mired, moored, marooned on an inland sea. Submerged, beached and bowling along. Stuck, stuck, stuck in the mud. ‘Free-range sculpture’, Nash, now 73, calls it. Sometimes the boulder bobs, sometimes it sulks, sunken up to its eyeline like a crocodile. In summer, the wood cracks; in winter, the boulder is tonsured with sleet. Years accumulate. The boulder lurks like a troll under a bridge and has to be levered free. God, what a ravishing country, you think, as our Odysseus, our Wandering Jew, our knight-errant, passes waterfalls, hills, washes and marshes. In August 2015, heavy rains and high tides swept the boulder away. Nash has searched high and low, checked every creek, ditch and bulrush. He has flown drones over deep water. ‘It has never been seen since,’ reads the video text. ‘It is somewhere.’” |
David Nash OBE, RA, (born 1945) is a highly acclaimed British Sculptor of international repute who lives and works in north Wales. His work has featured in exhibitions across the world and he is represented in many major museum collections. He works with trees, wood & the natural environment. In 1978 he created one of his best known works - a "free-range" sculpture called "Wooden Boulder", a 3 foot diameter rough sphere of wood carved from the trunk of a dying oak tree. He pushed it into an upland stream and let it float away. He spent the next 35 years tracking its progress, as shown in this video, as it made its journey down the Welsh valleys, into the Dwyryd estuary and to the sea.
ArtPort is privileged and grateful that David Nash has given us special permission for a rare public showing of this video.
A short extract from the video can be seen here Wooden Boulder
Apollo Magazine article: https://www.apollo-magazine.com
The Spectator article: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/you-ll-be-blubbing-over-a-wooden-boulder-at-david-nash-s-show-at-towner-art-gallery
ArtPort is privileged and grateful that David Nash has given us special permission for a rare public showing of this video.
A short extract from the video can be seen here Wooden Boulder
Apollo Magazine article: https://www.apollo-magazine.com
The Spectator article: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/you-ll-be-blubbing-over-a-wooden-boulder-at-david-nash-s-show-at-towner-art-gallery
