Artist: John Brazenall

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For many years, Edinburgh sculptor John Brazenall has worked as a fine art bronze founder, collaborating regularly with such luminaries as Ian Hamilton Finlay and, in New York, Julian Schnabel.  His own work, rarely exhibited, is anarchic, playful and beautifully conceived.

Statements about the work exhibited:

FLOWERS
Giacometti’s drawings of flowers have always thrilled me. He manages to evoke the details of the petals, but not in an illustrative way, and at the same time describes the volume of the flowers and the vase in the context of the room
This work is an exploration of these qualities, firstly in clay and then in bronze.

Dr JECKYLL and Mr HYDE
Guns are potent things, both literally and symbolically.
As a child I was given a pop-gun for Christmas one year.  On reflection, I loved its benign power, and this work is a revisitation of that innocent time.
As with all guns, the hazards are implicit, and I had an accident with one of them.  The accident was a technical one, but it turned out to be a happy one.  Working in bronze, casting accidents can occasionally work in your favour.  In this case, the mis-cast evoked the memory of a story my father once told me about a worn shotgun blowing up in the owners face.

SELF PORTRAIT AS A BUNCH OF TULIPS
I found a pier timber on the rocks at South Queensferry.
I thought that the whole, or even a section of the timber cast into bronze would be beautiful.  For me, the process both commemorates an object and takes that object from its normal place in the world of things and sets it aside.
Having made the decision to embark on a large scale casting project, this portion of the work, when placed on its end, suggested a connection between the land and the sea – a pier, where the wood came from – and a capstan that boats are tethered to.  The form of the capstan reminded me of a rudimentary representation of a human head and neck.
I feel that in some way all portraits are self portraits.  When I came to do the hair of the object, it changed its meaning to me again, becoming more of a still life project.  I grew frustrated with it and hit it with a stick, if only to change its meaning in some way.  Having done that, the longitudinal impressions on the spherical forms at the top began to remind me of tulips and their stems.  The freshness of the marks in the clay struck me in the same way as capturing a likeness of a sitter – or in the case, myself.

 

CV

Education:
1975-1979 Edinburgh College of Art, BA Hons, Sculpture
1979-1981 State University of New York, MFA