Space, balance and form

To coincide with the unveiling of a major new public sculpture on the University’s Sidgwick Site, and a large outdoor work at Churchill College, a free exhibition of large indoor sculptures and drawings by Nigel Hall RA opens at the College on May 4, 2013.

Hall is one of the foremost sculptors of his generation. His preoccupation with space, balance and geometric forms has led him to create some of the most beautiful works of sculpture to have been produced in the UK over the last thirty years.

The exhibition will encompass a selection of sculptures of varying materials; bronze, steel, painted aluminium and MDF, ranging from intimate to grand-scale.

Exhibition Curator Barry Phipps said: “Someone once said that painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity. In this way, through our collection and exhibitions, Churchill College strives to bring the best works of sculpture into conversation with our world-leading scientific researchers. And through Nigel Hall’s sculptures, within the context of the University, we find an outstanding opportunity to talk.

Accompanying these works are large, lyrical charcoal and gouache drawings, in which the deep, saturated pigments give weight to the lightness of the graceful curvilinear lines. The drawings are impressive in size, but never imposing, achieving a choreographed balance of form and space.

The changing relationships between space and form that occur when walking in landscape is paralleled in his practice, in which both movement and stillness are expressed.

Hall was born in 1943 in Bristol and studied at The Royal College of Art, London, where he later became a tutor. He was Head of MA Sculpture at Chelsea School of Art and a faculty member of the British School in Rome. He is well represented in numerous public collections in the UK and also the USA, Asia, Australia and Europe. These include Tate, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Kunsthalle, Zurich and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art.