Ceramic vessel with bicycle saddle.
Sculpture. 2021.
A ceramic pot with a bicycle saddle. The bicycle saddle is attached to a conventional bicycle seat pillar which is inserted into the narrow opening at the top of the ceramic vessel.
In the context of the sculpture the shape of the bike seat automatically evokes the form of an animal head.
Whenever the words bicycle seat, animal head and art are mentioned in the same sentence the name of Pablo Picasso and his 1942 work, Bull’s Head, inevitably come to mind. But we mustn’t let the great man’s work prevent the rest of us from using the same idea. He probably wasn’t the first person to think it up anyway, just the most famous. Remember, it was him who said “Good artists copy. Great artists steal”
In my sculpture the bicycle saddle doesn’t only suggest an animal head. Something about its shape also evokes the concept of a sail or of some form of crest shaped modern architectural structure.
Below is a variation of the sculpture where I’ve cleaved the saddle firmly to its animal head incarnation by adding a pair of headphones. The headphones have the pleasing effect of looking like a weird pair of eyes as well as a pair of headphones. The idea of adding the headphones came to me simply because there was pair of headphones lying on the floor next to the sculpture.