Forthcoming exhibitions
Peter Randall-Page
Stones, Sunlight & Shadows: New Sculpture in the Woods
21 June - 26 October 2008
This summer one of the UK's most distinguished sculptors, Peter Randall-Page, will exhibit a body of new work at Roche Court. A new group of granite sculptures will be sited in the landscaped and wooded area of the sculpture park, which contains a mix of trees and wild flowers, providing a beautiful setting of dappled sunlight and shadows.
Over the course of his career, Peter Randall-Page has established a reputation as one of Briton's leading contemporary sculptors. His most significant commission to date is an enormous granite sculpture, Seed, for the Educational Resource Centre (The Core) at the Eden Project in Cornwall. He is best known for his powerful volumetric sculpture inspired and informed by the patterns and forms found in nature.
His new granite works for Roche Court have developed out of the artist's interest in organic form and growth patterns in nature over the past 25 years. Randall-Page has long been fascinated by the relationship between geometry and biology, and in recent years he has become concerned with the underlying principles determining growth and the forms it produces. In his words: "geometry is the theme on which nature plays her infinite variations, fundamental mathematical principle becomes a kind of pattern book from which nature constructs the most complex and sophisticated structures."
In this new body of work Randall-Page explores the dynamic tension between order and randomness. His earlier carved stone works transformed hard stone into apparently living, organic shapes and forms, however his new works evolve from the original form of the stone. Working with naturally eroded glacial granite boulders, the entire surface is carved with geometrical patterns which adapt to the natural contours and facets of the stone: "the geometry on which the low relief pattern is based is found in many natural structures - it packs things together with optimum efficiency - nature loves economy."
Born in 1954, Peter Randall-Page studied sculpture at Bath Academy of Art from 1973-77. In 1999, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Plymouth and from 2002-2005 was an Associate Research Fellow at Dartington College of Arts. He has exhibited widely, including one-man shows at Leeds City Art Gallery / Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 1992, and the Natural History Museum, London in 2003. Recent commissions include Seed at the Eden Project; Give and Take in Newcastle, which won the 2006 Marsh Award for Public Sculpture; and Mind's Eye, a large ceramic wall-mounted piece for the Department of Psychology at Cardiff University (2006). Peter Randall-Page is represented in numerous private and public collections throughout the world, including Tate and the British Museum.