Following a highly anticipated Residency at New College, Oxford, the Sculptor's Retrospective exhibition continues until 8th July. Explore key works from Nicolas Moreton's 35 year career as one of the UK's leading contemporary sculptors throughout the New College Cloisters and Antechapel.
Nicolas Moreton, who has been represented by David Messum since 2017, is one of this country’s most innovative sculptors in stone. Keenly concerned with the fertility of nature, organic forms and human sexuality, he makes skilful use of his material to create instantly striking works that often enough are at once erotic, moving, amusing and beautiful.
Late last year Moreton opened his first retrospective exhibition, marking his sixtieth birthday and charting thirty-five years of his professional career. Located in the beautiful surroundings of the ancient cloister and antechapel of New College, Oxford, it includes work dating back to his degree show at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1985, right through to some of his most recent pieces. The exhibition seeks to promote the medium of stone carving, demonstrating how it continues to be a powerful and creative material in the context of contemporary artistic practice, whilst retaining its roots in ancient human practice – a creative medium that dates back thousands of years.
"This exhibition is an opportunity for me as an artist to reflect upon and come to terms with what I have been doing for the last 35 years. I am looking forward to showing in such a beautiful space and seeing how people will react to my work. I hope I make sculpture that the viewer will want to engage with, to begin a relationship with, in order to understand what lies beneath the visual.
Every day is a learning day to find form where none really exists. The heritage of stone links all cultures and is in a sense the foundation of our society."
- Nicolas Moreton
Praised and supported by the likes of Anish Kapoor and Brian Sewell (who was also a keen patron), Moreton’s work is widely represented in numerous collections around the world, and he is an elected member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. During April and until 13th May he has been artist-in-residence at New College, publicly carving a new piece of work within the college grounds, answering questions, and giving weekly tours.
Nicolas is an elected member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. He has exhibited at both the Royal Academy and the Chelsea Flower Show and his work is collected worldwide, with major public art works in London, Dublin, Yorkshire, and Milton Keynes.
Messum’s Fine Art is delighted to be involved in supporting and promoting the exhibition, which runs until Friday 8 July 2022.
To learn about when you can visit, please visit the New College website HERE
David Messum has represented the sculptor Nicolas Moreton since 2017 and examples of his work feature throughout the extensive sculpture gardens at Messum's Lord's Wood in Marlow, Bucks. The annual Open Weekend at Lord's Wood will be the 25th and 26th June 2022 and a number of works by Nicolas will be in prominent locations. To learn more about the Open Weekend visit www.messums.com
To see all available works for sale by Nicolas Moreton, CLICK here or telephone Messum's Studio to enquire on 01628 486565. Nicolas is also available to discuss commissions.
"In the early Nineties, when Nicolas Moreton had his first solo exhibition, he must have seemed a bit of an anomaly in contemporary British sculpture. That, of course, was our fault, not his. We tend to talk and think of sculpture as though it is one monumental, monolithic thing: the thing of Jacob Epstein, the thing of Henry Moore. Which is to say, essentially something concerned with the recognisable depiction of the human body, in whole or in part. Fortunately, artists like Moreton are around to remind us just how limited such a view is.
This is sculpture at its purest, material shaped (or fined down) into an expressive shape which evokes much but refuses to be explicit as to what precisely it is meant to express. Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears? Quite possibly. But also possibly thoughts that fly too high for laughter. In many ways the complexity of response is the point of the exercise. The most effective kind of aesthetic response is one of which we are fully conscious, while largely unconscious of how and why it is evoked. For such a response Moreton is, in his generation, the complete master. "
John Russell Taylor
Writer and Art Critic, excerpt from his introduction in Messum's 2017 exhibition catalogue.
To purchase the 2017 catalogue of Nicolas Moreton's sculpture
click HERE or visit www.messums.
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