Bronze Skin, 2002

Richard Deacon RA (b. 1949)

RA Collection: Art

Richard Deacon is a sculptor who constantly engages with different materials in his creative practice, viewing the process of fabricating sculptural works as a two-way conversation between artist and material. The jagged edges and twisting planes of Bronze Skin embody the artist’s journey to arrive at the finished form.

The creation of Bronze Skin was an organic process, spanning almost a decade. The conception of the work can be traced back to 1994, when Deacon ran a one-week workshop at the Institut für Gegenwartskunst, based at the Viennese Art Academy. He set the participants the challenge of creating an exhibition by the end of the week, using only waste cardboard that they had collected from the streets of Vienna.

For his part, Deacon cut off the corners of flattened cardboard boxes, making them into small pyramids and hinging them together to form an ‘elaborate carpet’ (Note 1). The three hinging points between each pyramid gave the carpet structure a unique flexibility, meaning that it could be moulded into 3-dimensional shapes.

After the workshop, Deacon transported the cardboard carpet to London, expanding and strengthening it and creating a bag-shape by wrapping the carpet around some balloons. He exhibited this cardboard sculpture, Second Skin, at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2001.

Deacon wanted to give the sculpture a more permanent form, so decided to make an aluminium sand cast of the work. This process necessitated the production of silicon moulds, and Deacon subsequently re-used these to cast Bronze Skin.

Deacon first exhibited Bronze Skin at Ocean Studios in Plymouth in 2015. Perceiving the work to be ‘rather singular and prickly’, he sensed that it needed to be displayed on its own, or at least not with any other of his work (Note 2). As Bronze Skin is his Diploma work and the only sculpture by Deacon in the RA Collection, it is fitting that the artist considers it to be best viewed as a standalone work.

Link to Second Skin (1994): https://www.richarddeacon.net/modules/core/client/img/uploads/b6f235aedd5996850d0754016b693253.jpg

Notes:

1. https://www.thedevondaily.co.uk/news/entertainment-reviews-local-news/richard-deacon-shows-bronze-skin-ocean-studios-show

2. Ibid.