By the Design House, David Annesley, Untitled, 1969
David Annesley
Untitled
1969
Painted aluminium
223.5 x 210.2 x 61 cm
88 x 82 ¾ x 24 in.
Edition 2 of 3
David Annesley
Untitled
1969
Painted aluminium
223.5 x 210.2 x 61 cm
88 x 82 ¾ x 24 in.
Edition 2 of 3
Gently stood on the lawn of the Design House Garden, David Annesley’s colourful and finely balanced linear forms convey a sense of weightlessness. Their lack of bulk and bright colours defy the undertaking of their creation, and engage in an intriguing dialogue with the verdant and natural landscape around them. Every element obeys a logic which justifies its particular position in the sculpture as a whole. As Ian Dunlop writes in his essay for The New Generation exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1964; 'They seem as self-sufficient as a suspension bridge. The stresses and strains are carefully balanced. Each element has its function and if any one strut or beam were removed, one imagines the whole structure might collapse.'
The shape and symmetry unfurling from its circular epicentre equip the piece with a natural feeling, and offer sensations of joy and pleasure as the park comes into blossom with Spring. Many of Annesley’s works draw on his interest in Jungian psychology, which he was introduced to in the 1960s when he came across a series of mandalas drawn by a woman undergoing analysis with Dr Carl Jung. Jung printed a selection of these mandalas in order to symbolise the self and harmony within the individual as archetypes of the collective unconscious. Annesley was immediately struck by the qualities of these drawings that, to him, were both universal and intensely personal.
These sculptures are made from aluminium that was cut, shaped, welded and, finally, painted. The meeting of this industrial material with perfectly complimentary pastel colours creates a sculpture that is at once striking and soft, rigorous and gentle. Colour is incredibly important to Annesley, for whom ‘colour is like taste’, and he can have a physical, synesthetic response to it with certain colour combinations making him feel ill. Each of his geometric steel pieces is finely, painstakingly colour-coded, matched and painted, with shade adjustments often ongoing for weeks.
To find out more about works by David Annesley, please enquire below:
David Annesley
Untitled
1969
Painted aluminium
223.5 x 210.2 x 61 cm
88 x 82 ¾ x 24 in.
Edition 2 of 3