- Venue
- Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens
- Location
CUT/STACK/BURN
Bruce Davies
Tremenheere Sculpture Park, Penzance, March 24th 2007
Bruce Davies had two spells at art school – most recently at
University College Falmouth – and in-between times he
worked for the National Trust. Employed in land
management in the far West of Cornwall for around
9 years, he worked outdoors in all conditions in one of the
most beautiful and ancient landscapes in the country.
The intimate knowledge of rural traditions and skills that
he developed during this time was recently translated into
the art-work: CUT/STACK/BURN.
Gorse, which is plentiful on the cliffs of Cornwall, is known
as ‘furze' when is dry, and is highly flammable.
In the last century and before, this prickly shrub was cut
during the summer and burned in the winter to provide
heat for cooking and warmth. It was also used for warning
beacons and the smelting of tin. CUT/STACK/BURN was an
installation and performance event in which, over a period
of several months, gorse gathered from a number of
heath land sites was transported then stacked carefully
in a field overlooking Mounts Bay, at Tremenheere
Sculpture Gardens near Penzance. There it was left from
winter 2006 to Spring 2007, where it dried out and turned
from a deep glossy green to a coarse pale brown.
Arranged in a neat broken circle 15m in diameter, the
furze created a cell-like enclosure: a half submerged room
with a single entrance evocative, perhaps, of early Richard
Serra. On the night of the burn visitors to the site were
able to experience this sculptural tinderbox, and
simultaneously watch the sun set over the bay.
Whilst built into the hill, and therefore sympathetic to the
undulating contours of the surrounding landscape,
the top of its walls were level, and in-line with the flat plain
of the sea beyond.
As the sun disappeared behind the hill, Davies and
National Trust warden Nigel Cook, dressed in
flame-retardant boiler-suits, ceremonially lit the furze,
and in a matter of seconds the entire work was alight:
orange flames jumping 60 feet in the air. The audience,
their faces warmed by the fire, clapped, and stayed to
watch it burn down to a few embers that glowed intensely
in response to gentle gusts of wind. Eventually all that was
left was a zen-like circle of ashes and charred ground on the hillside.
Davies' event had a quasi-ritualistic quality which partly
served to mark the arrival of British summertime. In this
sense the circle perhaps referred to cyclical processes of
natural change. Certainly as a transient artwork it was, like
a flower, predicated on the drama and inevitability of its
own birth, growth and death. CUT/STACK/BURN also
seemed to comment on contemporary forms of energy
usage. In becoming reliant on central heating
delivered to our homes by anonymous corporate suppliers,
perhaps we have become rather complacent and
unquestioning consumers of that resource.
Bruce is a member of the forum and left a number of posts
during the development of this work. He has his own blog too
http://www.cut-stack-burn.blogspot.com/
Tremenheere Sculpture Garden has been used as a venue for
events since James Turrell made a sky-box at the time of the
eclipse in 1999. It is only occasionally open to the public at the
moment, but there are plans to make it more permanently open.
Rupert White, 2007 www.artcornwall.org.uk
visual artist
