3D scupltures & Mark Wallinger

Made using twigs, leaves, wire etc.. I wanted to try making a more physical representation of the horse and 3D seemed like a good direction for that.

This is the 'horse' that started me working in 3D, I was up late and wanted to try something completely different to drawing and painting. It looks more like a deer/muntjac/bunny.

I've also started looking at Mark Wallinger and his public horse art. This year he made a life size statue of a shocking white horse, unmounted and untacked. I don't think it's a very true representation of the spirit of the horse as the horse is very obviously human domesticated in its appearance with its short well kept mane and similar tail and solid all over muscle and good weight without a grass belly.

Something I found really interesting to read was part of this article I found by The Independent;
"In any equestrian statue, the horse exists to exalt or to set off the man who is its mount. We are also being persuaded that something of the power and the musculature of the horse itself seeps into the very veins of the man, apportioning him some of its animal strength and vigour.

Wallinger's horse feels both related and unrelated to all these equestrian manifestations in a number of interesting ways. It is unmounted for a start, and it is nothing but horse without tackle, wholly unencumbered. It is not there to be seen in relation to the one who subjugates it or shows himself off at its expense. It does not exist to point a tale, martial or monarchical. Being quite shockingly white – especially when the sun blazes out – it puts us in mind of England's bevy of white horses out in the landscape, those strange apparitions in white silhouette that exist on our chalky, gently rising hillsides as we shift towards the West, and whose symbolic importance we often find ourselves musing upon as we rush by them in train or car."

Source: Link to source

This works well with my belief of how man is commonly known for representing the horse throughout history in art. The piece of his I'm really interested in is his plan to create a bigger than life size massive white standing horse. Again he plans to make this horse unmounted, but unlike his work this year he wants the horse to wear a black head collar.

I think this shows the oppression and control man has over the animal. It is a sculpture that will show the control man has over the animal, the ownership. His public art will be a massive showing of just how well man controls its animals. Because us humans do suppress our animals by domesticating them. We put all these man made contraptions on them and it takes away at the part of the horse that makes it a horse. The natural spirit of the horse is contaminated by our control.