Trust in Love

Here’s my latest piece, which when finished will be solid cast in stainless steel, polished and mounted onto a Corten steel base – currently the wax is with Lost Wax Developments awaiting investment casting.

This piece portrays the all too frequent way in which the conviction, hope and belief in love can be ill-founded - the heart of one is deeply imbedded in the other, the trust of love destroyed, eradicated completely, with the innocent painfully bleeding and the guilty dominating, overpowering and ultimately remaining unscathed.

It’s another piece in my series of sculptures exploring the often over romantic notions surrounding love, and especially the symbolic heart that depicts it….

“Unrequited” – The crippling agony and suffocating loneliness of love that is not returned.

“Without” – The confusion in life where love simply does not exist.

“The End” – The dark destruction and totality of love that ends.

“Search” – The often endless and fruitless search for love in life.

“Lost” – The emptiness and lifelessness of lost love.

“Imprisoned” – The confinement of a love unavailable.

“Give and take” – The loss of one’s heart when given to another.

….each one bringing an unseen opposing image and significance to the common perception.

The piece is scheduled for casting in late February, and once complete will feature here.

Imprisoned

The struggle between the ties of life and the draw of love can be a powerful one, and this sculpture represents that struggle of being enchained by the course of life, by fate, and once settled in that life, being unable to realise the true love when found outside of that life.

Rather than unrequited, this love is confined, restrained by the complexities of situation, it is alive with power and depth of emotions within, but ultimately...in the end, the love remains imprisoned...

As with the “Search” sculpture, the heart is made from a solid billet of steel, hand sculpted to the form of a heart that appears strangled and choked. Again, the surface has been hammered over its entire surface to provide the finish. The chain is a find from a barn in Wales, the tie a hand forged band allowed to rust, and the base a piece of drift wood from a beach on the south of England.

Search

This piece portrays the difficulties of finding true love, the endless, often fruitless search for the one that unlocks the heart. The keys depict the relationships that did not fulfil, the people that did not bring the love desired...and as the heart continues the search, and life goes by, the heart remains empty, un-fulfilled, lonely in a crowd...

The centre piece is made from a solid billet of steel, sculpted by hand to shape the heart, and hammered over its entire surface to give the warm, evocative surface finish. The key escutcheon is pewter, riveted in place over the key hole.The keys themselves come from many months of collecting, and waiting for the elements to age them.

The End

The 3rd piece (earlier pieces being "Unrequited" and "Lost" ) in a long term series exploring the concept of  love.

Love is often portrayed as the ultimate pleasure, a thing to strive for and cherish, yet in reality, it has a darkness and with that darkness come morose and sometimes threatening emotions as life plays out around it.

This piece depicts the shattering effect of the end, of the loved one walking away, the confirmation that the love is gone, and the devastating effect that has - the heart has lost all life, all the energy has gone - it is dust, it is dead.

The piece is constructed of a heart shape cut from a wood, which was then burnt in a fire and carefully laid on the background for capture - keeping the heart in one piece and preventing pieces blowing away was quite a challenge, although ironically, this too exactly reflects another aspect of what the piece is portraying.


Further pieces to follow explore the emotions of love further, with two more sculptures (in my more ususal medium of steel) due in the next few weeks - look out for them on the web site at www.haich.co.uk

Without

Titled "Without", this piece is an interpretation, and a graphic representation, of the emotions of loss, in all its guises.

It's one of those ideas that has just somehow evolved from within me. The piece, I hope, is apt in a multitude of situations........the break up of a relationship, the parting of friends, the mourning process.....

....as without love, there is only confusion.

Designed to be wall mounted when finished, it's made of cast crystal glass and stainless steel. I am still debating the surface finish of the steel, I am torn between a dull grey or bright polished at present - the polished surface would denote the brightness of true love, the dull would evoke the opposite.


Look out for it on my website in a few weeks.