LONDON.- An ardent advocate of conservation, sculptor Jon Buck is exhibiting a new body of work at two locations this Spring; Pangolin London and Gallery Pangolin. Jon Buck’s latest sculptures play on the forms of two ancient objects; bells and boats - warning tocsins and rescue vessels. This exhibition is a celebration of the beauty of biodiversity, but also comes with a caution for our planet.

Intricate motifs tessellate across the surface of these vessels and bell forms, within which metaphors for life can be found. The bells that Buck has made do sound, realising the dual purpose of a bell; joyful or forewarning. The biodiverse scenes, transcribed through his universal language of glyphs, are a celebration and honouring of the life that the bells also toll for, calling for its preservation.

Throughout his career Buck has interpreted the world around us, drawing his inspiration from poetry, science and anthropology. Compelled by concerns for the environment, in particular the human relationship to the natural world, Jon Buck’s experience working as Keeper of Birds at Bristol Zoo in his youth was an important creative inspiration, and through his knowledge of nature and science he began to investigate the ways in which sculpture could stimulate a deeper primal response.

In earlier works Buck explored surface textures and markings imprinted into the surface of the bronze, which led to an interest in pushing the boundaries of colour, experimenting with patinas and painted surfaces in collaboration with his foundry, Pangolin Editions. Although his works on paper retain the use of bold, bright colour combinations, the palette for Buck’s sculpture patinas has recently returned to radiate softer hues, as with The Whole Caboodle and Seeds of Doubt, moving away from vivid, high gloss surfaces towards more earthy, organic tones. Both the colour and texture of these new works imbue a mineral quality, and reinforce their connection to nature.

Along with Ark, one of the largest works and first exhibited at Chester Cathedral, a major new work is one of three bell forms, Taking the Toll. Buck says:

I have chosen to use the bell motif for a number of reasons. There is of course a long-standing tradition of making bells in bronze casting but in addition bells are redolent with cultural meaning and there is an inherent ambiguity in how they are used. In many societies bells are rung joyously in celebration but at the same time they can also be tolled as dire warnings of imminent danger.

I would like my current work to embrace both these aspects.

The title of the show ‘Time of Our Lives’ underlies these sentiments. While in the last forty or fifty years many of us humans have ‘never had it so good’, in that same period according to the WWF, the earth has lost more than half of its wild animals.

“The scale of the crisis is so large that we cannot see it, although it is right there in front of us, like a last elephant in the room that is our world,” writer Tim Dee says of Jon Buck’s endeavour as an artist to express this anguish. Time of Our Lives is an important solo exhibition which not only celebrates life and its incredible diversity but also warns us of the future. It couldn’t come at a more poignant time and will undoubtedly resonate with us all.

“What do we feel about ourselves as human beings, about our relationship to each other, to other creatures and to the wider environment in general? Science has tried to put us back as part of nature as we rapidly become more isolated from it, can art express this irony?” – Jon Buck

Jon Buck studied at Nottingham and Manchester Art Schools. He is a Member of the Royal West of England Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. He has completed many public commissions including ‘Returning to Embrace’ for Canary Wharf in London and ‘Ship to Shore’ for Portishead Quays. His work is regularly exhibited both in the UK and abroad and is held in many public and private collections.