I Was - Oligarch
Cast Bath Stone with gold-plated dice, animal bones, bullets, mineral oil, plastic, £20 note, real emerald etc.
I Was (She) Oligarch
Cast Bath Stone with gold-plated dice, animal bones, mineral oil, plastic, £20 note, fake jewellery, real jewels, bullets, real 18 carat gold plate, perfume etc.
She (including plinth) 82 cm high
Further images
Each sculpture is unique and represents a different type: the oligarch, the hunter/gatherer, the soldier/refugee, the archetype.
Human beings have changed little over the millennia. These pieces are about the link between us now and then. Modern archaeology enables us to discover the nature of each human from their relics; their bones, the belongings around them, even what they ate. All the clues left now begin to reveal the very personality of each human remains.
Their shapes are closely based on an amalgam of the very earliest sculptures made by man, many thousands of years ago. Both the British and Ashmolean museums have dozens and dozens of figures from what is now eastern Europe, from Egypt and ancient Greece. Some are carved (the Cycladic Greek ones) in stone very similar to the Bath stone I cast in. Others are clay, from press moulds, but each given different features when still soft, which is similar to what I have done.