Reclining Dove

Michael Francis Cartwright

2003

Cast aluminium

66 x 124 x 40 cm

also a bronze edition of 3

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.