Largest sugar cube sculpture in the world….
SUGAR CUBE TOWER
On July 2nd, at the Towner Museum of Contemporary Art (A new 8.5 million pound purpose built visual arts venue on the coast of England’s popular seaside town of Eastbourne) Brendan Jamison will be exhibiting TOWER, a giant 5 metre tall sculpture that has been built over the past three and a half years from a quarter of a million sugar cubes. The total weight of the sculpture is 506 kilogrammes (over half a tonne) and is the largest sugar cube sculpture ever created in the world.
A sprinkling of loose sugar crystals radiate outwards from the base of the tower. A river of cubes meander across the gallery floor. The crystals can reference the chalk erosion from the nearby Beachy Head cliff, the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain. The installation also interacts with the interior architecture of the gallery and plays upon the viewer’s perception of scale. The sculpture combines the shape of the solid masculine building block with the sparkling sugar crystals and sweetness of the feminine material, both of which visually dissolve the construction into an androgynous architectural form. On an other level, the sculpture captures a child-like sense of wonder and notions of the fairytale. Within a local context, the tower can reference elements from the structures of the coastal Martello Towers, Redoubt Fortress and the Belle Tout Lighthouse.
This project was jountly funded by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Towner Museum, Eastbourne. Jamison’s chief fabricator, Karin Bamford, assisted in the construction of the sculpture.
Last year Jamison was commissioned by NEO Bankside to carve the iconic Tate Modern in sugar cubes for the London Festival of Architecture. Afterwards, his sugar sculptures were sold at Sotheby’s on Bond Street. The largest works from the Helen’s Tower series are currently on display at the Dickon Hall Gallery (Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast) until 2nd September. The artist is also currently working on a major commission for North Down Borough Council in his hometown. Scheduled to be unveiled on 22 August, Jamison is building a sugar cube sculpture of Bangor Castle Town Hall, an Elizabethan Revival mansion built in 1852 by the Ward family.
For further info please visit www.brendanjamison.com
