David Breuer-Weil – Sculptures in the Secret Garden
Part of Brighton Festival 2023, this intriguing exhibition includes six monumental sculptures that have been exhibited around the world, brought together for the first time alongside smaller models.
David Breuer-Weil, the sculptor responsible for these works, has long had the image of a secret sculpture garden in his mind, drawing his ideas in works titled The Sculpture Garden I and The Sculpture Garden II in 2018 (fig 1 and 2). So, when Gavin Henderson, Chair of the Antony Dale Trust, approached him about doing this exhibition in The Secret Garden after seeing a number of David’s works publicly displayed around London, he knew his ideas could come into fruition.
When approached by Gavin, David thought:
“Rather than seeing these large sculptures in separate locations, here was a chance for them to be installed together, within sight of one another, one feeding off the other in proximity.”
“I immediately thought – here at last is a taste of my imaginary sculpture garden but made real and concrete.”
A lot of David’s works are embedded in the ground, alluding to there being a far larger part of the sculpture beneath the surface, giving the viewer freedom to perceive the rest of the sculpture in their own way.
David says his greatest influences are prehistoric art, so many of the sculptures on display are in human form, but allude to the style of the stone circles in Avebury and Stonehenge.
The sculptures are David’s way of expressing philosophical ideas about life, about mortality and our relationship with the Earth. He says:
“You’ll see all these sculptures, they’re either popping out of the Earth or coming down from the sky. So, it’s all these ideas that we as human beings are partly Earth-bound, but we’re also, in a way, angels too, with our heads in the clouds. It’s a very human thing in that sense.”
The Sculptures in the Secret Garden exhibition is running from 7th April – 4th June every weekend and Bank Holiday, 11am – 5pm.
