The Potent Draw of Wounds by Lucy Gray
Title: The Potent Draw of Wounds
Artist: Lucy Gray
Medium: wood, jesmonite, 23c gold leaf and roots
Size: H 41 x W 52 x D 10 cm
'The Potent Draw of Wounds’ is a large abstract sculpture made from a segment of tree trunk from which 28 gold strobili protrude. Heather root distends from each strobile like pulsing veins. The burls - a type of knotted growth indicative of burr elm, caused by stress or injury – affirm the work’s given title (a line from the poem ‘Recovering Ground’ by Leonie Charlton). It denotes pain, anguish, masochism and even self-harm. The black lines that band across the wood - which Gray has surgically and painstakingly incised with a chisel, staining with layers of French polish and graphite – evoke a tourniquet. Stepping back, the trunk with its burls and splaying roots is now an undulating limb. Visceral, it resonates with the harm we are inflicting on both the planet and indeed ourselves, as we cut down more forests and extract and burn more carbon.