A day at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (part 3)

July 19, 2025 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

The final batch of pictures from my Yorkshire Sculpture Park visit. As previously, I’ve added a little information about the artworks below each picture, but you can find out more at the park’s website.

**Seated Figure by Sean Henry**

Sean Henry makes detailed and life-like sculptures of anonymous figures, often in casual poses and deep in thought. They are usually based on members of the public or actors, and scaled either up or down, so they are never actually life sized. *Seated Figure* is a monumental 3 metres tall. The artist uses clay to model his works in the studio, before they are cast in bronze. (taken from the YSP website)

This piece can be seen from miles and has a commanding position looking out across the landscape from the top of a hill.

The charity boxes that inspired this piece were a common sight when I was younger, although not with the additional flourish added by Hirst, which features the collection box pried open by a crowbar. I was amused and happy to note that crows had taken up residence within the open collection box and were carrying nesting material in there as I watched.

**The Virgin Mother by Damien Hirst**

Damien Hirst’s The Virgin Mother stands at 10 metres tall and is the tallest sculpture at YSP. A powerful presence in the landscape, it is partly inspired by the historic sculpture *Little Dancer of Fourteen Years*(c.1881), by Edgar Degas. Hirst deliberately makes the materials look different than they are, for example *The Virgin Mother* is bronze painted to look like plastic. (taken from the YSP website)

This is a striking piece of sculpture and my picture doesn’t really give a sense of scale, with a full grown adult barely reaching the figure’s calves. It’s also slightly disturbing with the figure appearing intact from her left profile, only to reveal tissues, muscles, bone, and a fetus in her womb. Where her left hand crosses the demarcation between outside and inside, the fingers are severed.

Two Large Forms by Henry Moore

The colossal sculpture is impressive in both scale and composition, appearing very different from every angle and continuing the theme of points that almost meet, which appears in much of Moore’s work. (taken from the YSP website)

I’d originally intended to get the whole sculpture in frame when I took this shot, but I liked how the child gave a sense of scale to the piece, so moved the viewpoint.

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tmax 100 (expired 2008). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 7 minutes @ 20°

Taken on 5 April 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A day at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (part 2)

July 18, 2025 fishyfisharcade4 Comments

More pictures from my Yorkshire Sculpture Park visit. Again, I’ve added a little information about the artworks below each picture, but you can find out more at the park’s website.

**Wall Dale Cubed – Sean Scully**
Made for YSP, *Wall Dale Cubed* uses 1000 tonnes of Yorkshire stone from a local quarry and was constructed over many weeks. Importantly to the artist, this colossal work is built in the same way throughout, which connects to ancient stone walls in Ireland, so that ‘when looking at the outside of the block, one can feel the inside without being able to see it’. (taken from the YSP website)

**Galaxy was a Memory, Earth is a Souvenir by Kimsooja**
Kimsooja developed this elegant and towering conical sculpture in collaboration with scientists at Cornell University. The nanopolymer in which its panels are covered enhances the refractive qualities of light, giving an iridescent effect similar to that which occurs naturally on the wings of a butterfly or a beetle’s shell. It is responsive to changing light conditions and brought to life by sunlight on its surface. (taken from the YSP website)

The structure apparently has a mirrored floor which make it look like it pierces the earth below, although I didn’t walk close enough to it to see this aspect.

Peter's Fold — **Peter’s Fold by Andy Goldsworthy**

In Britain, folds have been made for hundreds of years as animal pens and Goldsworthy has developed the traditional fold to make contemporary sculptures. *Peter’s Fold* was built using drystone techniques by master wallers who have worked with the artist for many years. The Yorkshire sandstone was sourced from Hillhouse Edge Quarry in nearby Holmfirth. It is built around a common lime tree with distinctive epicormic growth, which occurs when dormant buds beneath the bark become active. (taken from the YSP website)

I decided to take the picture from a low vantage point on the grass. Unfortunately, due to the way TLR cameras work, I didn’t spot a stray blade of grass in front of the taking lens which resulted in a blurred smudge on the image. I’ve attempted to remove this and not done too bad a job (although you can probably see the joins if you look closely…)

A stump amongst the dafodils — **Tree Stump by The Tree**

This isn’t an actual artwork, but this lone tree stump surrounded by daffodils looked pretty photogenic, so here it is, in amongst it’s more famous fellow park residents.

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tmax 100 (expired 2008). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 7 minutes @ 20°

Taken on 5 April 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A day at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (part 1)

July 17, 2025 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

Back in April I took a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The venue features indoor gallery spaces, but also a significant landscaped outdoor park dating to the 18th century. Throughout the park are an large array of sculpture and artworks of varying styles, types, designs, and sizes.

On this visit I took my trusty Yashica Mat 124G and a (potentially less trustworthy) roll of expired Kodak Tmax 100 film that had been sat in the freezer for several years. As you can see, there was no need to worry about the condition of the film, which has produced lovely results.

I shot the whole roll at the park and will post the pictures over the next few days. I’ve added a little information about the artworks below each picture, but you can find out more at the park’s website.

**Djinn – Bharti Kher**

This huge, 5-metre tall bronze sculpture is very striking. It forms part of a series titled *Intermediaries* that take South Indian golu dolls as their starting point. These small, colourful clay figurines that are displayed in homes as part of the Navaratri festival depict gods and goddesses, animals and people.

Riace figures — **Riace Figures – Elizabeth Frink**

There are three of these figures gathered together, titled Riace II, III, & IV (although only two of them feature in my picture – I don’t know which ones).

The *Riace* figures are inspired by the 5th century BCE bronze sculptures that were rediscovered in the sea off the coast of the Riace region of Italy in 1972. Frink said ‘*the original figures are very beautiful, but also very sinister, and that is what they are supposed to be*’.

**Buddha – Niki de Saint Phalle**

The black and white picture, while pleasing, doesn’t really do justice to the bold colours that make up the mosaic surfaces of the figure.

**Sitting – Sophie Ryder**

Known as the Lady Hare – which Ryder describes a companion for the Minotaur – the work combines a female body with the head of a hare, a mystical creature in folklore.

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tmax 100 (expired 2008). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 7 minutes @ 20°

Taken on 5 April 2025

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Slightly unnerving

January 14, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This huge hare-headed woman is at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (not far from a circle of beautifully crafted animal head sculptures – albeit them being on a much smaller scale). They’re impressive to see but, like some of the other sculpted figured dotted around the park, can be oddly unnerving.