14 Wallpaper

Wallpaper (Anaglypta Man) 2016
Bronze h39 x w50 x d27 cm

In 2016, the Ipswich Museum collaborated with the Ipswich Art Society members, asking them to respond to their choice of artwork from the collection.  It was a project that would culminate in an exhibition at the Ipswich Art School Gallery.  Head of a Man, a work on paper by Eduardo Paolozzi, was the piece I selected for my response.  Although I was more familiar with Paolozzi’s bronze heads, in particular Shattered Head (1956), which I like very much, I’d not seen anything in two dimensions from him.

My first thought was: could I make a bronze head out of paper?  I’d been thinking about casting paper for quite a while by this point, but had never got around to doing it.  Here was a good reason to have a go.

Wallpaper was a conscious choice.  It’s used to cover over a wall and its imperfections.  From a practical point of view, it is thicker and stronger than everyday paper and therefore better for casting.

Head: Wallpaper (Anaglypta Man) is the result.

The original was made from small, randomly torn pieces of different textured wallpapers collaged onto the central core head.  The thinness of the paper made it necessary for the bronze to be poured very hot.  Even so, there’s one very big hole where the bronze did not flow.  I am not entirely sure whether that was because the space was too thin or because I hadn’t directed the bronze that way with a runner.  Whatever the reason, it changed the sculpture dramatically.  It exposed the inside to the outside, giving access to a blackness that draws the eye, and creates a sense of ancient time.  I was also amazed and impressed at the thinness of the bronze, like a decorative skin or Medieval armour.

Generally, bronze pours at Butley Mills Studios take place on a Friday afternoon.  I would then go in over the weekend to open up my investment mould, with its precious bronze sculpture inside.  On this occasion, however, I wasn’t able to make time to do this until well into the following week.  When I eventually went into the foundry, my mould wasn’t there.  It transpired that one of the young sculptors had very kindly opened it up for me and water-jetted it clean.  He told me the piece was sitting by my metal working table in the metal shed.  I tentatively asked him if my head had worked and the terrible reply was: No it hadn’t, it had a big piece of the face missing.

I braced myself to go and examine the damage only to find the stunning, atmospheric piece as it stands today.  In some ways, the young sculptor had been right, but he was also mistaken; Head: Wallpaper did have a big piece of the face missing, but it certainly had worked.