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2007 Jerwood Sculpture Prize - Winner: Juliet Haysom, 'Spring'

1 May 2007

Juliet Haysom has been named as the winner of the 2007 Jerwood Sculpture Prize. Her sculpture entitled, Spring will be installed at Ragley in 2008.

Exhibition Catalogue Text by Rachel Campbell-Johnston, Art Critic, The Times

Rome - as any fan of La Dolce Vita knows - is a city of fountains. Fed by a network of underground aquifers, they spring up from every plaza, a source of refreshment and pleasure and sensual delight. These fountains are the inspiration of Juliet Haysom who, on a recent trip to Italy's ancient capital, was once again struck by their wonderful effervescent celebration.

Haysom is particularly intrigued by the ways in which a piece of sculpture can make use of the invisible qualities of a place. She has made works which depend upon levels of the moisture in the atmosphere or the amount of dust which is floating about in thr air. And, in the process of researching into the landscape around the Jerwood Sculpture Park at Ragley, Haysom discovered how pronouncedly important was the presece of water in this particular region. The Ragley estate, she realised as she pored over geological maps, is situated directly above one of England's most significant aquifers - a vast underground bowl scooped out of a bed of highly porous sandstone.

Haysom proposes that this local Sherwood sandstone should provide the base of her sculpture. A block will be sunk into the parkland, flush with the grassy surface. It will be the opening of a borehole which Haysom would like to drill deep into the ground. Tapping into deep aqueous resevoirs, she plans to create not some monumental sculpture but an ephemeral sculptural form made out of the water vapour spurting through a series of narrow jets. This piece would respond to the surrounding environment: to the history of such nearby towns as Malvern, for instance, whose wells of healing water springing from the same vast aquifer have been attracting visitors for hundreds of years (the town still maintains its tradition of well dressing, apparently, in which the water sources are annually celebrated through grateful adornments); or Leamington Spa which flourised around its saline springs: or Burton-on-Trent whose famous breweries thrived because the hard water of the region was so perfectly suited to the beer making process.

The sculpture would also have a direct and active relationship with its more immediate landscape. The falling vapour, suggests Haysom, would sustain the turf and surrounding plants before vanishing into the atmosphere and ultimately returning to the ground.

But on top of this, this piece has a lyrical beauty. Springing up in a landscape of more conventionally solid structures, it would flourish like some shimmering tree. Dissolving amid passing rainstorms, buffeted and blown by blustering winds, its myriad prismatic rainbows meling in the sunshine, it would be constantly changing with the changing weather.

This fountain could introduce something of hte sensual delight of Dolce Vita to the Jerwood Sculpture Park at Ragley.

Juliet Haysom

Juliet Haysom (b. 1978 in Poole, Dorset) studied BFA, University of Oxford; Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art (1998-2001) and MPhil Sculpture and Drawing, Royal College of Art, London (2002-2004).

Selected exhibitions include: The Great Escape, Grizedale Arts, Cumbria (2001); Jerwood Drawing Prize Show, London, Cheltenham, Glasgow, Cardiff, Poole (2002-2003) and Cheltenham, London Birmingham, Glasgow, Hull, Salford Quays (2005); Plural 1 (2004), Plural 2 (2005), Plural 3 (2005), British School at Rome, Italy; Spaze Aperti, Romanian Academy, Rome (2005); Salon Connexions, Contemporary Arts Projects, London (2006); Drawing Inspiration: Contemporary British Drawing, Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal (2006); Lake Baikal, IMAGE Furini, Arte Contemporanea, Arezzo, Italy (2007).

She has received a number of awards including, The Second Year Cunliffe Sculpture Prize, Rusking School (2000) and The Sainsbury Scholarship in Painting and Sculpture, British School at Rome (2004). She was Artist in Residence at Headington School, Oxford (2005-2006) and her drawings are held in collections at the University of Oxford and the British Museum. She currently lives and works in London.

For more information about the Jerwood Sculpture Prize visit www.jerwoodvisualarts.org/sculpture
For more information about Juliet Hayson visit www.juliethaysom.net