David Tucker - by Andrea Gledhill

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"More and more I become conscious of an ultimate destiny.

I think I have a role to play in influencing the minds of men."

Peter Fuller 1967

The Language of Gesture

New work by sculptor David Tucker

by Andrea Gledhill

A local girl comes home

David Tucker's 2007 exhibition at the New England Regional Art Museum, This Body of Life Journey, beckons the viewer into an intimate, yet starkly lit space and presents just three bodies of work: A Local Girl Comes Home, Floods and Hurricanes and Undone. Each reveals a lifetime of conscious, subliminal and environmental influences on the artist.

English born, Tucker's first eleven years of life were spent in North Africa, where as a child he encountered the art of ancient Egypt and the ruined Roman cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha. In the mid seventies he built a small timber cabin in the mountains of northern NSW, Australia. While practicing yoga and meditation, he slowly began to see the country surrounding him:. the trees, creek, light and sound which he still feels a part of. It was a sharing of territory.

“I wanted to get to know the other world beyond self interested enlightenment. Pierre Bonnard’s idea in Morning in the Garden was a good one. Celebrating life with other people – I started using friends as models and made small, figurative wax cast bronze pieces and later figures carved in timber from trees in my immediate environment.” Weekly life drawing became an imperative in his art practice.

Floods and hurricanes

Determined to do the best sculpture he can without quirk or cleverness, Tucker considers soft clay the most suitable medium for his current work. Coiled white raku and terracotta clay is used to construct the figures. Their gesture has become Tucker’s language, honed to the minimal, they stand silent, naked and unarmed – being still, just being there. This Body of Life Journey speaks of the transience and vulnerability of life. The viewer is lured into contemplating another's private moments from a safe, timeless distance. It is the measured restraint of each narrative that quietly allows the viewer to read and reflect on its meaning. Discussing the work Floods and Hurricanes, Tucker reveals, "The evolution of movement in my work from the Opening Gesture Series in 2005 demanded that the work got down on the ground. Early last year I viewed an exhibition of 2000 year old terracotta figures from West Mexico. They were ordinary people, they showed their teeth, they were scary. I explained to the model what I had in mind: to stand, breathe, empty, roll and so on, to the sound of ‘Tabla Rasa' by Arvo Part. The model was comfortable with the physical movement - she does theatre - and was comfortable with being naked and still, but felt she would be more at ease and abandoned in her movements if she wore underwear. The knickers were violet! How fantastic when such a moment in the process of making a work can throw the process in a new and surprising direction, contributing greatly to the new and evolving piece."

A local girl comes home

A Local Girl Comes Home is based on the personal story of some of Tucker's close friends. “Last year they became pregnant. This is a personal tale that is also universal. Their story is represented as a procession, which is an archetypal image represented through time and many cultures." The work carries resonance of Egyptian and Pre-Renaissance Christian imagery, but most strongly, the "Goddess" from the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. In these Asian traditions, the Goddess will often be portrayed with many arms to carry the symbols of her attributes. Rather than one figure with six arms, Tucker chose to make a naturalistic representation of three women who carry the symbolic objects home at this important event in her life. The work is a personal story of his friends and also a universal tale of the continuation of generations. Its resonances may be ancient, but its execution is contemporary. This story is one of movement and change but the feeling is of being self contained and still

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Undone

The final work in the exhibition, Undone, finds Tucker himself modeling for the work. A self portrait maybe, Tucker's only clue to his audience is "It's the conundrum. It's about losing the things previously known. The way life continues to turn everything on its head forcing us to relearn and re-evaluate our lives".

After one and a half years of production, David Tucker has developed a pivotal body of work that encompasses a multitude of themes that he has explored throughout his 20 years or more as a sculptor.

This Body of Life Journey
9 November 2007 – 27 January 2008
New England Regional Art Museum
Armidale NSW Australia
9 Feb – 8 March 2008
John Gordon Gallery
Coffs Harbour, NSW