Comment Sculpture

We have become very easily accustomed to seeing and accepting barcodes in many aspects of our daily lives. We take them for granted as indicators of price, value, identity and uniqueness. Like most people, I cannot read barcodes but enjoy them for their visual appearance and mystery in the same way that I cannot read hieroglyphics or cuneiform but still enjoy the visual impression and pattern they make – especially in stone. And I like stripes. ‘Comment’ is carved in magnesian limestone quarried in North Yorkshire in the UK and was made in 2009. The artwork makes use of both a sawn and smoothed surface as a contrast to the texture of the natural geological ‘bed’ surface of the material, along with a random profile shape, to create a deliberately ambiguous context for the subject matter and to influence the meaning of the work. In its fragmented form the sculpture intentionally adopts an association with the way relief sculptures from architectural antiquity are often presented to us and, in this respect, I have deliberately juxtaposed that association with the very old with an image of modern day living to present an apparent ambiguity and a gentle surprise. However, stone, apart from being a material related to ‘the old’ in art and architecture, is also the very fabric of the earth itself and the barcode cut into this work seeks to address the notion that everything, including the land, has a materialistic value placed upon it for itself, for its position, and/or, more often than not, for the resources that it contains and which, as is the case in several global locations, can give rise to very contentious issues. The appearance of this barcode, as the stripes ‘disappear’ particularly towards the top left of the work perhaps give another co-incidental and slight reminder of an association with wealth too by echoing a cityscape crowded with tall and slender buildings, often themselves indicators of high status, wealth and power. This particular barcode, as a comment upon all those materialistic issues, takes its format from a sales barcode printed in an old copy of The Financial Times whose advertising strap line once read as ‘No FT, no comment’. ‘Comment’ is ideally suited to fit onto (or into) a wall. A steel fixing plate and bracket is attached to the back of the stone and an accompanying steel wall bracket is supplied along with the necessary bolts. This fixing method was used when the sculpture was exhibited in a temporary sculpture trail in 2010 at Newby Hall (North Yorkshire, UK) as seen in an additional photograph. Peter Maris March 2017

Sculpture:Stone on Stone

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:56.9 W x 21.7 H x 3.9 D in

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