I like art that I can touch.
Nov 27, 2020
I like smooth, curved, tactile surfaces that the palm of my hand can slide over.
I particularly like wood because it’s warm to the touch.
I’ve never been lucky enough to touch this piece by Barbara Hepworth but just looking at it makes me feel calm and relaxed.
Pelagos (‘sea’ in Greek) was inspired by a view of the bay at St Ives in Cornwall, where two stretches of land surround the sea on either side. The hollowed-out sculpture has a spiral form resembling a shell, a wave or the roll of a hill. Hepworth wanted the taut strings to express ‘the tension I felt between myself and the sea, the wind or the hills’.
She made it in 1946 from elm and its mounted on a base made of oak.
If I owned it I’d probably wear it away!
