Boar

In conversation with Edward Lucie-Smith, Frink describes the evolution of her sculptures of wild boars which gives an especially clear picture of her creative process, 'One of the reasons I started sculpting boars was that when I lived in France, in the Cevennes, we were surrounded by woods and we could actually see wild boars, especially at night. On moonlit nights they'd be making their passages down to the Camargue. They're very fascinating, shy creatures. I was attracted more by their emblematic than by their sculptural qualities. Much of my work is based on that - the combination of something past, the Celtic element, something now, and something which might possibly be in the future. My various sources have been quite precise, but they've turned into something else en route. There's an accumulation of ideas. If you think about something like a wild boar it brings together a whole lot of new ideas and feelings. An image of a boar becomes a place to put an idea or a feeling, and my work is mainly through feeling. Observation does come into it as well, naturally, but I use observation to create a shell for whatever feeling you're doing' (E. Lucie-Smith and E. Frink, Frink a Portrait, London, 1994, p. 123).