By Nature (Cedar of Lebanon)

“The nature of a thing…is a certain principle and cause of change…and is directly present in it” (AristotlePhysicsII/1/192b20)

The sculpture sets out to hold in a single object the life and ‘nature’ of a tree. It begins at its base as a slim shoot, steadily widening in girth as it grows taller, finally terminating at its top as a rotting stump consumed by wood boring insects. This is a tree as we know a tree rather than as we see one; it is held as a living, growing, changing organism. The phenomena by which we understand a tree’s growth are aligned in a single vector along its length and, consequently, this axis directly represents the passage of time.

The sculpture’s geometry provokes the viewer to anthropomorphise the work and transfer its content onto our own species.

Whilst the sculpture naturally evokes many of the objects and signs associated with Christianity, it actually gives presence to the background ‘creation’ from which all of our stories are drawn. Appropriately to its setting, the work juxtaposes a life fully lived with one cut short through execution.

The work is developed from ongoing PhD research at Chelsea College of Art into our experience of the phenomenon of age in the objects that constitute our environment.

The pictured maquette is constructed from boxwood and reflects in its physical form the ‘nature’ of that plant. The installed piece will be developed from a Mediterranean cedar and will reflect the growth habit of such trees. Whilst the artwork, at first glance, appears as an inverted tree, a closer inspection reveals that the branches are reversed to ‘grow’ upwards along the vertical ‘time’ axis of the piece.

It is envisaged that the sculpture will be approximately 3 metres tall and suspended from the cathedral fabric near the crossing in the nave or one of the transepts.