description

Thom Puckey (Kent, UK 1948 - )

The Wife of the Alchemist
2008
Statuario Marble, wood, goldleaf, platinumleaf
60 x 40 x 195 cm

Detail Description

The well-known sculptor Thom Puckey (1948, UK) started his career as a performance artist in the late 1970s; this taught him in the expressive possibilities of the body and in how to represent it as a sculptural image. Thom Puckey's sculptures seem to be borrowed from Neoclassical sculpture, but on closer inspection the nudes are a lot more disturbing. The anatomical details in his marble sculptures, with sometimes aggressive or vulnerable poses, indirectly refer to classical sculpture, but the contrasting language of high and low culture disorientates and fascinates the viewer.