Aphrodite

In conversation with the artist for Waddington Galleries 1998 exhibition on 6 May 1998, Colin Renfrew discussed Turnbull's later reworking of Aphrodite in an edition of six produced in 1984. He asked Turnbull about the original piece which was cast in an edition of four in 1958: 'Perhaps you could remind us about the earlier work Aphrodite (1958)? Both of them have got a quality of balance which is one of the things in your work that I hugely admire. You had a work in your Serpentine show a couple of years ago, Tall Balance (1992), which was amazingly poised, rather as the head on Aphrodite is. It brings out something about the human form: this terribly delicate balance by which we're always keeping ourselves upright'. Turnbull replied, 'There are certain images which seem to stay in the memory. I have always been picking off things which relate to this type of image: when you see people carrying things on their head. I remember seeing an image of somewhere in the West Indes where there was a man walking along the beach and he had this long thin coffin balancing on his head. This image, every time I see it, seems to act as a trigger: it excites me, I seem to respond to it'. Renfrew continued, 'Now, just remind us of one of the sources of that Aphrodite. We were mentioning the Hera of Samos in the Louvre because in your first Aphrodite one reallly felt its presence', to which Turnbull responded, 'I think I made the egg shape first, and then had the idea of having it up high. And at that time the corrugation served two purposes. First, I was very aware of how the Greeks had used fluted columns which gave the column lightness: the impression was quite different from as if it were just absolutely solid. The other was that by using bits of cardboard, bits of paper and bits of corrugation, I could stick it on the plaster and pull it away. This was a matter of trying to use, within a conceived structure, an accident happening, so that you had the choice to say: 'Yes, I like it, leave it'. It bypassed the stage of just working out of knowledge or will - and instead you were not finding something, finding sculpture, rather than making it. It was all very much in the process' (see exhibition catalogue, William Turnbull: Sculpture and Paintings, London, Waddington Galleries, 1998, pp. 9-10).