Stephen Ralph: Messenger

It is with great pleasure that The Commercial presents Stephen Ralph: Messenger, the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.

In a departure from the marble with which he has worked since 2018, this new series of sculptures sees Ralph turn to the matte and porous qualities of igneous basalt to rework the form of the herm, a classical homonym referring to both ἕρματα / hermata, ‘blocks of stone,’ and Ἑρμῆς / Hermes, the Olympian deity of heralding. Like their ancient counterparts, Ralph’s herms mark a threshold between symbolic function and bodily presence with outcomes for the socialisation of sculpture in the public domain.