One thing I love about using my own power to get around town is spotting things I’d never see on the tube. I started cycling about 18 months ago and love how I see so much more of hidden London now. In the past couple of weeks I’ve started running again, deliberately varying my routes and opening up my eyes to new inspiration.
This week, I was out running and I spotted this:
I literally stopped in my tracks, I was transfixed. I must have been past this place hundreds of times, but just never looked up at the right moment. To be fair, I used to frequent this area more in my university years, which pre-date this sculpture, or so my research tells me, so perhaps I’m not completely unobservant.
I had to return with camera to capture this beauty. The marble has a luminosity that you can’t really see in my photo, and the serenity of the face is captivating. What you also can’t really see here is the scale – it is several times larger than a human face!
So, how can we take inspiration from this unexpected find?
The literal translation would of course be intentionally distressed interiors. For example:
The speech therapist’s room in The Kings Speech, from flickr
the Rough Luxe hotel near Kings Cross
or this N16 location from 1st option.
But we could also consider how different the statue would appear depending on your angle of approach – a whole face (approach from its right side) or an unworked stone (approach from its left side). It got me thinking about this from a trip to Verona:
Industrial wall art?
Or a flight of stairs?
(sorry for the poor picture quality – picture from my old camera!)
Finally, how about the luminosity and quality of the material itself?
I find this nook in the recently redesigned Beaufort Bar at the Savoy hotel, designed by Pierre-Yves Rochon, equally transfixing, although I wouldn’t have expected to like it: gold is not normally my style.
(source: Business Traveller via NH Design blog)
So, what about you? What does the image make you think of? Does it transfix you or would you walk past without a second glance?
Do you know where this distressed beauty is? Let us know your guess in the comments! If no-one gets it, I’ll share where it is – and credit the sculptor, a new and inspiring find for me – in next week’s post. I’m looking forward to checking out some more of her creations!