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Venture

Drawing
1985-1986 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Antony Gormley is a sculptor, and winner of the Turner Prize in 1994. Gormley's drawings are mostly self-sufficient works, not direct studies for sculpture, but nevertheless share some of the same concerns. He describes drawing as "an attempt to fix the world, not as it is, but as it exists inside me." Casts of his own body are often his starting point for sculptures, and in Venture he suggests something of this experience of being enclosed, of being inside. The drawing evokes the darkness inside his hollow lead figures, and the claustrophobic experience of being encased in plaster. The figure holds up an unidentified implement (perhaps a pencil or a scalpel) which appears to open a chink of light in the enveloping blackness.

Object details

Category
Object type
TitleVenture (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Oil and charcoal on paper
Brief description
Drawing, 'Venture', Antony Gormley, 1985/1986
Physical description
Outline of a figure, black on a black ground, holding a pencil or some other implement
Dimensions
  • Unframed height: 137.1cm
  • Unframed width: 111.7cm
Credit line
Given by the Contemporary Art Society
Object history
Given by the Contemporary Art Society, 1988
Subject depicted
Summary
Antony Gormley is a sculptor, and winner of the Turner Prize in 1994. Gormley's drawings are mostly self-sufficient works, not direct studies for sculpture, but nevertheless share some of the same concerns. He describes drawing as "an attempt to fix the world, not as it is, but as it exists inside me." Casts of his own body are often his starting point for sculptures, and in Venture he suggests something of this experience of being enclosed, of being inside. The drawing evokes the darkness inside his hollow lead figures, and the claustrophobic experience of being encased in plaster. The figure holds up an unidentified implement (perhaps a pencil or a scalpel) which appears to open a chink of light in the enveloping blackness.
Collection
Accession number
E.1132-1988

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Record createdSeptember 16, 2004
Record URL
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