I embarked on this show with a desire to be playful with the past.
Like most people, I love the theatrical and decorative nature of ancient artefacts. I am, unashamedly, a figurative sculptor and artist. I ride several horses in my meditations, spinning them around into something ‘other’ – mixing dark foolery with folklore, gravity with levity and a sort of logical nonsense. But, the eye is always towards elegance and often humour.

The sculptures are journeys by boat, horse and other time-worn inventions.
“The Runcible Spoon” sums it up – taking Lear’s limerick - The Owl and the Pussycat and planting them on the barge-thrones of Dynastic Egypt.

“Panjandrum” sends-up a Phoenician water cart - sporting Eros as the omniscient hare - shared by so many cultures. “Minoan Haredevil” takes the Cretan Bull for a ride into Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland.

Then, “Once I Sat Upon a Promontory” puts Shakespeare’s Bottom on a pedestal - on a Tang Horse. The referencing is deliberate and haphazard – “King Creole” is a Neolithic Elvis, mounted on a weathervane horse, on a vessel.

“Monsieur Bubo” walks out of a sombre, but contented, corner of the mind. I have gone boldly with two, complementary tones for the sculptures and retained the rush of colour for the walls.

These works are executed in both a free and controlled hand. Eclectic again – an impressionist palette blends with the stark and vivid colours and themes of Persian and Moghul miniatures and the signs and bird symbols of the Pueblo. Then, “Veronese’s Dog” strays into the frame. Where something bright and bizarre happens, as in the subject and hues of the “Fish Eye Horse”, I find a looseness that often comes of itself.

Pierre Diamantopoulo ARBS

Click here to see details of Pierre Diamantopoulo's previous show (2009)

Go to 'Current' page