Collection
Under the Forest
Fernando Casasempere (b. 1958)
Under the Forest
ceramic
3.5 m high
2006
Having discovered Fernando Casasempere's work at COLLECT in 2005, the Jerwood Foundation commissioned a major piece for Jerwood Sculpture at Ragley in early 2006. Under the Forest was installed in the summer of 2007.
With his strong interest in the environment, Fernando created five vast forest-like forms that blend with the surrounding trees and change with the seasons. 'I try to work with the landscape and melt into it rather than conquer it', says Fernando. ‘I wanted the trunks to mix in with the forest ... in the summer they would take on the natural branches of the surrounding trees and in the winter echo their naked form' (Artist's statement).
To create Under the Forest Fernando spent six months in 2006 at Baggeridge Brick's Sedgley factory. He worked with local West Midlands clay mixed with clay and industrial waste materials shipped over from his native Chile. Measuring around three metres in height the forms only just fitted into Baggeridge's twenty metre long industrial kiln and are a unique and extraordinary technical achievement, taking ceramic sculpture to a new level.
Select Bibliography
C. Cripps, 'All fired up and ready to join the forest',The Independent supplement,14 May 2007, p.21.
'Up Front', CRAFTS, May/June 2007, p. 12.
E. Crichton-Miller, 'Not to be Glazed Over', FT How to Spend It, 7 April 2007, pp. 35-38.
R. Mehta, 'Mixing It Up' Interview with Fernando Casasempere, MADE, Issue 1, 2007, pp. 8-12.
'Sculptor Fernando is a Real Brick', Birmingham Post, 16 November 2006, p. 25.