Collection
Green Fuse
Peter Randall-Page (b.1954)
Green Fuse
Granite
6m high
2008
The Jerwood Foundation commissioned Peter Randall-Page to carve a monumental granite sculpture for Jerwood Sculpture at Ragley in 2007. The piece, entitled Green Fuse, was carved in 2008 and installed in 2009.
The obelisk-like sculpture sits on the summit of The Avenue, to which the eye is drawn from the house and its formal gardens. Carved from granite using a technique known as pitching, it reflects Peter's preoccupation with the natural world. ‘All my work is informed and inspired by close observation of form and pattern in the natural world. The intricacy and perfection of growth patterns on a microscopic level have become an important theme in my recent work. My aim is to evoke something of the complexity of theme and variation we find in nature.'
The sculpture explores ideas of scale and complexity. ‘From a distance it will be a clear strong vertical form framed by the trees and outlined against the sky but on closer inspection its intricacy and subtlety will become apparent. The overall form is inspired by the powerful upthrust of young rush plants. The other influence comes from Indian Hindu architecture. Approaching the sculpture walking up the Ride would hopefully be akin to the experience of observing a natural object like a seed or cone through increasing magnification.'
The title Green Fuse comes from the Dylan Thomas poem 'The force that through the green fuse drives the flower' and further evokes Randall-Page's image that like the young shoot, Green Fuse thrusts itself up out of the earth and reaches towards the light.