Among the most compelling of William Turnbull's totemic female figures, Aphrodite distils the human form into an austere vertical stack of just two interlocking elements. Aphrodite's torso and head are delicately balanced with the poise of an ancient idol.

Disc with Strings (Moon) was completed by Barbara Hepworth in 1969, the same year man landed on the moon with the Apollo 11 mission. This sculpture was informed by Hepworth's fascination with technological developments and the widening of our understanding of the universe, particularly in the case of the development of aviation. Disc with Strings (Moon) combines Hepworth’s concerns with the experience of the natural world and the modernist relationship to scientific development.

untitled: broken shelf (2010) is an example of Phyllida Barlow’s playful experimentation with mass-produced construction materials. Its precarious position, hung on the wall, suspends the work in a state of both construction and destruction. The sculpture is made of timber wrapped in colourful tape; all attached together with textured plaster. 

McWilliam turned to the theme of legs after a period of more or less representational sculpture in the early 'seventies when he had worked on the 'Women of Belfast' and 'Banners' series, both of which had elements of direct political reference. The 'Legs' sculptures mark a return to a more playful and paradoxical imagery, and take both the idea of the complete fragment, and of the eliminated torso, as the basis for a series of unexpected and idiosyncratic improvisations

Sculpture 4 alludes to a fragment of Greek and Roman sculpture yet here Hume plays with the conventions of monumental marble sculpture with his hallmark bright, glossy paint charging the sculpture with emotion and a sense of latent movement. The limbs, though disembodied, maintain a sleek and sensual quality and encourage the viewer to walk around the sculpture, viewing it in the round.

Diorama SS.7.67 is a record of a meticulously planned performance, with its subject becoming the act of painting itself.

The work comes from a pivotal time in Ian Stephenson’s practice, when he developed a process nearly as absorbing as its outcome; a methodical equation of applying paint to canvas by flicking in precise sequences. Diorama SS.7.67 is made up of two canvases, both almost identical in appearance but with one rotated 180 degrees. Stephenson moved around each canvas with metronomic regularity; measuring his steps and repeating the exact same paces around each canvas on the floor. Layering paint, dots covering dots to create an infinite, burning red expanse akin to stars in a galaxy.

Jacob van der Beugel's work interprets human identity and DNA, fusing materials to bridge the divide between science and art. De-polariszumab 3 seeks to mirror the polarisation that van der Beugel believes now embodies contemporary life. The black and white at the extremities of the form warm into colour in the middle ground.