Benediction

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Benediction, 2014,Bronze, stone,2100 x 500 x 500mm Terry Stringer’s work teases the eye. Benediction plays with us and rewards us when we let go of our trained eye and simply let t he harmony of his sculpting overtake us. Stringer has, for decades, moulded abstract and divine concepts of blessing and guidance into figurative sculpture. Benediction’s still form appears to us in a continuous expression of movement, the blurring imperceptibly of what looks like a hand, a visage, a paddle. The plinth it balances on reaches almost two metres into the air, allowing us to experience the work from the ground and gaze upwards, and around. With Benediction we get the sense that there is delight in Stringer’s illusion, his work a small part of what is an extensive oeuvre of visually commanding challenges. His entire practice lies in his skill in testing the divide between the ideal and the real. As he has mused: “Sculpture can have a series of horizons beyond which its world changes.” Stringer has a twist in the way he sees things due to a small flaw in his eyesight, which trickles in to his art through a distinct lack of depth. “I have to deduce depth logically, from visual clues.” Using multiple points of perceptive entry, each form presented by the single sculpture is experienced from a different place - none of these images are compromised by the other, discretely dissolved into the next. With the success of this comes the element of surprise.Terry Stringer’s work teases the eye. Benediction plays with us and rewards us when we let go of our trained eye and simply let the harmony of his sculpting overtake us. Stringer has, for decades, moulded abstract and divine concepts of blessing and guidance into figurative sculpture. Benediction’s still form appears to us in a continuous expression of movement, the blurring imperceptibly of what looks like a hand, a visage, a paddle. The plinth it balances on reaches almost two metres into the air, allowing us to experience the work from the ground and gaze upwards, and around. With Benediction we get the sense that there is delight in Stringer’s illusion, his work a small part of what is an extensive oeuvre of visually commanding challenges. His entire practice lies in his skill in testing the divide between the ideal and the real. As he has mused: “Sculpture can have a series of horizons beyond which its world changes.” Stringer has a twist in the way he sees things due to a small flaw in his eyesight, which trickles in to his art through a distinct lack of depth. “I have to deduce depth logically, from visual clues.” Using multiple points of perceptive entry, each form presented by the single sculpture is experienced from a different place - none of these images are compromised by the other, discretely dissolved into the next. With the success of this comes the element of surprise. Show more