Three Sculptures to Discover on Campus.

One of my favourite things about campus is the sculpture park. There is nothing more joyous than rounding a corner and finding some gorgeous work of art and I wanted to share a couple of my lesser known favourites with you. I didn’t want to bore you with conversation about works like, ‘let’s not be stupid,’ By the turner prize winning Richard Deacon which while as extraordinary as it is; is really easy to fins as it is just in the middle of campus and massive. These sculptures are a little more out of the way and half of the joy is just discovering them, so my instructions on how to find them will remain vague so I hope if you do try and locate them it will recreate the effect of just stumbling onto them on an evening walk. 

Down in the woods on the path down to the medical school, tucked away in a little grove is an installation by John Newling. I discovered it on a stroll through the woods. My eyes were fixed on the ground trying to avoid ruining my shoes by stepping in mud. Taking a moment to see if I could find a squirrel or something interesting to look at instead of continuing to trudge through sludge, I saw a series of silver letters hanging vertically from a tree. It read ‘Our shadows alone touched you trying to find where here is.’ Do I know what that means? No. However, it’s location in the middle of the woods lends a surrealness to it, which can make a walk through the woods a lot more interesting. 

A similar surreal sculpture can be found if you just walk for ages past the rugby fields. As you round a bend in the path you will encounter a tall white structure with a series of holes in its top. It’s called ‘Habitat,’ by David Nash. Constructed from an old tree trunk there is something undeniably natural about it’s form but also it’s undeniably artificial construction is only heightened by it’s positioning within nature. It’s this contradiction which was so interesting to me when I first. There is an eeriness and instability to it which has fixed itself in my mind.

Finally if you walk past the arts centre, down a little alley, past the chaplaincy and past another sculpture called ‘Spear and Estuary,’ (which I really like but mostly because it reminds me of constructing a dog house out of driftwood with my Dad) is a little courtyard. In this courtyard is my favourite sculpture on campus, ‘Dark at Heart,’ by Peter Randall-Page. It’s ammonite-like structure is at first perplexing but as you look at it becomes something else. At first I saw a mother holding her child but as I looked harder I realized the figure was by them self. There was something special about finding this lonely sculpture on a late night walk by myself. Of course I didn’t know if I was projecting onto the sculpture but finding out that the artist himself described the work as, ‘The consciousness of being alone,’ was hugely gratifying. You can find out all about all of the of art on campus on the warwick website.