art | style
That has been the pattern of Dennis’s sculpting career: his innovative and striking pieces have created a demand that has clearly taken him by surprise, sometimes to the extent that he likes to take a break from certain pieces. His exquisite shorebirds, fashioned with the keen and loving eye of the birder, would, according to Anne Toms of Yarmouth Gallery, ‘walk off the shelves’. “The lovely thing is that by changing direction his work remains fresh,” she says.
Everything he makes is irresistibly appealing, and he achieves this by overblowing reality just a touch, or taking the essence of what it is that appeals and simply stopping there. His Nomadic Owls are pleasingly almost abstract in shape; other stylized owls, squat or fancifully elongated, are textured and tactile; fish curl their tails coquettishly; guinea fowls are deliciously round. “I like to vary the position of the heads so in a group they look like they’re all doing something different,” he says. He is currently working on a ceramic version of a portly and self-important Colonel Planter figure he made previously in bronze: “Unlike the bronze castings, these ceramic Colonels and Majors are one-offs and can be varied in expression and movement.”
Among the bronzes in Dennis’s garden is a giant apple core that sits under the (real) apple tree, playing with your sense of perspective. Then there is his work inspired by a visit to the Cycladic Museum in Athens, a Cycladic couple, as well as a long-faced Cycladic man with a faintly quizzical expression, and one with ‘hair’ of structural grass. “I wonder why the people in that period in history made statues with an elongated neck and a shield head. I wonder if they represent something alien they saw,” he muses.
His website shows a sea urchin fountain and disgruntled gargoyles – never were water features so inspired – and portly gentlemen so rotund as to be almost abstract. “People still track me down via Google, years after seeing my work at Chelsea Flower Show,” says Dennis, inexplicably surprised.
Dennis’s move towards ceramics is in many ways less of a lurch than you’d think. “I use a bronze glaze for the guinea fowl and hares that makes them look more solid than they are, with a patination that encourages natural verdigris,” he says. “A glaze can make or break a piece. It’s all about the finishing touches.”
The result is a substantial and highly tactile finish achieved far
Abstract and owls: Dennis’s versatility is shown with his free abstracts and his new ceramic owls
more affordably than a bronze. Groups of owls, pairs of birds, or wandering badgers may now be attainable by those who have long coveted a Dennis Fairweather work.
And now with his latest table lamp project just getting underway there is the chance to own a sculpture for inside that is functional, certainly, but which has a glorious frivolity.
Dennis Fairweather’s work is on sale at Yarmouth Gallery, Forresters Hall/High St, Yarmouth PO41 0PL t. 01983 761424. w.
www.fairweathersculpture.com
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www.styleofwight.co.uk
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