Stephen Ralph: Gravity

The sculptures in Stephen Ralph’s exhibition Gravity represent the convergence of two artistic trajectories: a formalist concern with the principles of matter, weight, direction, and space, and the classical, figurative tradition of the expressive nude body. Each work is an arrangement of body parts in a state of precarious balance. Instead of standing up, the sculptures lie down in prone heaps, supported by concrete plinths spaced in a staccato rhythm across the gallery floor. The forms are derived from life casts in plaster of the artist’s two sons, which are then cut into pieces and finely modelled in Chillagoe marble. These bodily fragments are treated as distinct shapes, the cut edges subjected to a process of abstraction that exaggerates or refines the interventions of the angle-grinder. As sculptures, the body parts are re-aggregated according to a new logic. They balance, lean, and rest on each other, relying on gravity rather than a structure of bones, muscles, and ligaments.

—Georgina Cole