art making & exhibiting 2023

harry adamson

Contemporary Turtle

Eucalyptus wood and stainless steel

175cm x 73cm x 78cm

Contemporary Turtle utilises a contrast between the warm and inviting wood and the jagged, cold steel. Like much of his oeuvre, Adamson's sculpture explores the conceptual dysbiosis between the natural world and humanity. This had led him to create an artwork that is hostile, brutal, inflexible, and flawed. Contemporary Turtle's ramshackle visage is constructed through an assortment of riveting, gluing, soldering and interlocking piece of metal, that help the artist to convey firstly, the chaos and unnatural nature of humanity's current state. Conversely the wooden shell depicts the purity and beauty of the natural world. Through carving, sanding and layers of oil, the shell glows with an organic aura. Adamson utilises the contrast between the human made components, which are unwieldy and inorganic in shape and texture, and the natural ones, which express a sense of regrowth and life. The artist's choice ultimately to portray the turtle's body as the part that is manmade, satires human hegemony and critiques the anthropocentrism of contemporary society. Yet despite this, Adamson include barbwire tendrils, reminiscent of roots, that reach down to the ground underneath the sculpture. These 'roots' allude to a sense of hope the sculptor feels that this disconnect between natural and manmade can be resolved.

Adamson’s sculpture is accompanied by his earlier artworks ‘Head’ and ‘Hand Tree’.