OE Red Cuts Column, 2010

David Nash is a British sculptor and land artist, considered one of the country’s most prolific artists. Working almost exclusively in wood, he started creating abstract sculptures carved and manipulated out of this natural material using heavy machinery such as chainsaws and axes in the 1970’s. Isolated in the ex-mining British town of Blaenau, David nurtured his own voice and style aside from the artistic trends prevailing in British art at that time. His masterpieces are long-term projects that exist in the nature, Ash Dome being a ring of 22 ash trees planted in 1977 that he progressively shaped into a mesmerizing rotunda, and Wooden Boulder being an oak trunk carved into a ball in 1978 that has been slowly tumbling down a river over the years.

OE Red Cuts Column embodies Nash’s unique conception and knowledge of the arboreal world. His sculptures are rooted in the life cycle of a tree and are dictated by the intrinsic characteristics and flexibility of each of its species. Effusing wisdom, spirituality and warmth, this piece plays with the contrast between the yew’s fiery ochre heartwood and its ashy exterior. Mysticism and theatricality are at the heart of Nash’s artistic practice.