Carved from Memory
Further information
Pope recalls, “Some time ago, I was taken to Exeter Cathedral to see a gargoyle that was carved by my great-grandfather. My mother had been taken to see it by her mother too. Only when I returned to show the carving to my own daughter did I realise that the stone had weathered to such an extent that it was now impossible to tell what has been depicted. Only through conversation with my family could I build a picture in my mind of what the carving had looked like. Between my mother and grandmother, the image had been imagined as a number of things. It was an amalgam of their recollections. Rather than a verifiably accurate image, I realised that what was being described was as much imagined as it had been real. In dialogue, in it’s description, its form also changed. Somewhere between us lay the image of the stone figure. Interestingly, this complex layering of imagination and image was at the heart of my great-grandfather’s practice as a stonemason, given artistic licence to carve anything on the west front, and elsewhere, on the Cathedral.”
Biography
Simon Pope was born in Exeter, he is an artist who explores the interactions of memory and dialogue in relation to landscape representation. He is a Reader in Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art & Design where he leads the MFA and MA Fine Art programmes. He represented Wales at the Venice Bienniale of Fine Art in 2003.
Simon lives in London and works in Cardiff, UK.
Artists website: http://sites.google.com/site/ambulantscience/Index
Read a Guardian Review by Stuart Jeffries
Further information
Pope recalls, “Some time ago, I was taken to Exeter Cathedral to see a gargoyle that was carved by my great-grandfather. My mother had been taken to see it by her mother too. Only when I returned to show the carving to my own daughter did I realise that the stone had weathered to such an extent that it was now impossible to tell what has been depicted. Only through conversation with my family could I build a picture in my mind of what the carving had looked like. Between my mother and grandmother, the image had been imagined as a number of things. It was an amalgam of their recollections. Rather than a verifiably accurate image, I realised that what was being described was as much imagined as it had been real. In dialogue, in it’s description, its form also changed. Somewhere between us lay the image of the stone figure. Interestingly, this complex layering of imagination and image was at the heart of my great-grandfather’s practice as a stonemason, given artistic licence to carve anything on the west front, and elsewhere, on the Cathedral.”
Biography
Simon Pope was born in Exeter, he is an artist who explores the interactions of memory and dialogue in relation to landscape representation. He is a Reader in Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art & Design where he leads the MFA and MA Fine Art programmes. He represented Wales at the Venice Bienniale of Fine Art in 2003.
Simon lives in London and works in Cardiff, UK.
Artists website: http://sites.google.com/site/ambulantscience/Index
Read a Guardian Review by Stuart Jeffries
