Arrival on exhibition at Saint-Tropez

Shona Nunan

2004 – 2005

bronze

edition 1 of 3

230 x 150 x 70 cm

€171,000

catalogue number SNS23

The Horse and Rider is a significant evolving theme in Nunan’s work. With early influences from old Swedish horse carvings, Chinese ceramics and the Italian artist Marino Marini, she has created her horse and riders to represent the journey through life. Each plateau in her life has brought forth a new Horse and Rider. Nunan symbolically regards the Horse and Rider as a symbiotic union of spirit and ego. Her earlier horses were a lot finer and lighter than the heavier riders, more and more the horse is stronger and more than equal in the partnership. 

Reflecting the passage through life, Arrival’ emerged after a time of great endurance and with this sculpture Nunan often refers to the sense that she had climbed to the top of a mountain. The feeling of arrival gave a great sense of calm and tranquility with an overview of the past and the view ahead splendid, the possibilities endless.

 

 

Guardians – on exhibition in Saint-Tropez

Shona Nunan

2013

The Guardians edition 3 of 3

240 cm tall

€120,000

“The Guardians emerged in my work at first as ‘Night’ and ‘Day‘ and then they became little fecund women figures on hilltops and single figures in the landscape, ethereal figures connecting to the spirit of the land. In other ancient cultures I have found Guardians too. The Etruscans,   the Cycladic Greeks, the Egyptians, the Africans, the pre-Columbians…  The Guardians are amongst the great archetypes of civilization and deep down,  even today, and without hocus pocus, we know we have to protect the things that are sacred to us, our inner selves, our children, our homes. The Guardians at an entrance are saying, come in, but be respectful. For me, these Guardians symbolically represent the balance of life,  they are yin and yang, male and female, conscious and unconscious, night and day.”

catalogue number SNS17

Earth Guardian – on exhibition in Saint Tropez

Shona Nunan

2015

bronze
edition 1 of 3
206 x 76 x 24 cm

€79,000

catalogue number SNS03

“The ‘Earth Guardian’ has come to me from shields, from leaves, from feathers. Her colour is the reddy brown tones of soil. I love this gentle feminine form that rises from the earth, barely touching it, yet her cloak-like shield is encompassing  and incorporating  the rhythms of the life that flow like a river around her inner body. Her inner body comes inspired from a beautiful twig I found with the seed pods stuck to the surface, like symbols of fertility and abundance.”

 

Earth Guardian – on exhibition in Saint-Tropez

Shona Nunan

1999

Bronze unique cast

236 x 30 x 30 cm

€53,000

catalogue number SNS47

 

Nunan’s amphora series were an early attestation to the abundant power of womanhood and its cyclic messages of fertility and alternating emptiness, like a vessel.

This sculpture of ‘Earth Guardian’, in the mode of Nunan’s amphora series, has also a sense of a leaning ancient column with its simplicity of form and elongated protective presence. 

Sentinel – on exhibition in Saint-Tropez

Shona Nunan

2016

bronze
edition 1 of 6
181 x 48 x 30

€37,000

catalogue number SNS06

‘Sentinel’ is a strong woman form standing on guard. She comes inspired by the ancient sword, the hilt with its ornate guard and pommel becoming her body and the blade, the graceful length of her legs. In a two dimensional way the sword figure relates to Nunan’s vessel series of women forms.  The simple strength of the lines in the sword and the lovely swirl of the guards have enriched the language of her woman forms as guardians and sentinels.

 

Reflection – on exhibition in Saint-Tropez

Michael Francis Cartwright

2015

bronze

edition of 3

200 x 85 x 40 cm

€81,600

catalogue number MFCS22

From Cartwright’s Bird series, ‘Reflection’, is the form of a bird with its reflection in the water.  It is about balance and harmony, the polished bird on the darkness of the depths of the water. There is also a sense of gentle movement, and again a sense of play with the forms.

 

Journey of the Sage – on exhibition in Saint-Tropez

Michael Francis Cartwright

2015

Bronze  sculpture

edition of 3

189 x 120 x 63 cm

€142,000

maquette created in 2000

edition of 8

€16,900

catalogue number MFCS19

The Monks’ journeys over the seas, searching for a place to retreat and contemplate during the tumultuous Dark Ages of Europe, brought them to Skellig Michael in Southern Ireland, off the Ring of Kerry. They built dome houses on the ragged rocky islands and fished and ate mutton birds, and transcribed the great books they gathered from other lands. Cartwright spent four months on the southern edge of Ireland overlooking the wild Atlantic and Skellig Michael, studying the stories and history of the area, inspiring him to create a series on the ancient Monks and Vikings. 

Fishing Over Uluru- on exhibition in Saint-Tropez

Michael Francis Cartwright

2016

bronze edition of 3

250 cm tall

€105,000

catalogue number MFCS18

This sculpture is inspired from my ‘Fishing’ series.  It comes from the boat sitting on the edge of the reef, just in balance between the enormous depths of the ocean and the shallows of the reefs.  My other inspiration for this sculpture is the great outback of Australia and the stories and dreamings of the original people at their sacred site, Uluru.

I see this sculpture as representing a part of the great journey of life, the vehicle, the boat, traveling through the night sky, its great net collecting the dreams of the people on the land, treasures in the making.

Reclining Dove – on exhibition in Saint-Tropez

Michael Francis Cartwright

2003

Cast aluminium

66 x 124 x 40 cm

also a bronze edition of 3

€33,500

catalogue number MFCS42

I would like to share with you some insight into Michael’s work and in particular his Bird series. I have known Michael’s work for many years and always I am challenged with the language of his work and always I am delighted, though my understanding can sometimes take years in formation.  Michael’s creativity is spontaneous and draws inspiration from his free interpretation of life, he is free without compromise, and it is this freedom that is ultimately human though sometimes forgotten in the rules we place around ourselves. From freedom comes the Bird series, the most powerful reference to Michael’s language as a free being.  Michael loves the story and his work can be ‘read’ and it is perhaps the bird in his work, (for there are many), that reflect the state his spirit is in.    Some birds he has created have lain down, ‘Reclining bird’, and seem to have come from a period when he had to rest and wait before he could ‘fly’ again. But he also has ‘Nest’, a proud upright Bird overlooking his nest, defending or protecting his creation in the egg like form before him. Portrait of a bird, abstracted and beautiful, is a work that reflects the nobility of purpose. 

Michael likes contrast with his work, so you will often find the tough and the tender within the same work.  Sometimes it is expressed through texture, soft and smooth and rough and lumpy.   Sometimes it is through organized, beautifully finished forms and their adhoc arrangement, irreverent of proportion.

 

Moon Dance – on exhibition in Saint-Tropez

Michael Francis Cartwright

2017

bronze

edition 1 of 3

223 x 96 x 31 cm

editions 2 & 3 are available  €102,000

first exhibited at Australia House, London

catalogue number MFCS02

 

Moon Dance is the celebration of life.

Moon Dance is the celebration of our reawakening of our place in the Universe, adoration, our respect and our joy of the Universe.

We dance in the reflected light of the Moon, we dance over the Moon, we dance in joy.

Moon Dance is cast in bronze at Versiliese foundry in Pietrasanta.  It is in an edition of three.

Edition 1 of 3 was first exhibited in the ‘Journeys’ exhibition at Australia House, London, it has now been donated to the village of Correns, France