“I have become increasingly obsessed with the quest for beauty in form through utility of design. The objects that l gravitate towards are those that exemplify the love and understanding of the worked material, the rigour and knowledge of the use of the tools that made them and their purpose. My journey is one of expressing these values through carving green wood.”
The spoon is arguably man’s first vessel, a giver of life, a utensil providing comfort and nourishment: universal and timeless, domestic and intimate. Spoons are the earliest eating tools, dating back as far as the Paleolithic Era. Seashells were connected to small wooden sticks and chips of wood were slowly carved into spoon-like shapes.
Preserved spoons from the ancient Egyptians and Rome, are composed of ivory, flint, slate and wood. Many of them carved with religious symbols. In Africa and the Americas Spoons have a deep symbolic and religious history and in many other cultures they are often associated with gift giving and ceremony. The spoon is an object of love and veneration, in birth marriage and death.
With its lip, bowl, shoulders, neck and stem it has all the attributes of a sculptural object...but it is still just a spoon and for Mark, the repetition in making such a humble yet essential vessel is infinitely fulfilling and endlessly demanding.
Mark Reddy takes the modest, humble form of the spoon and imbues it with symbolic expression.
Skilfully working with wood cut and foraged locally he utilises the innate character inherent in this material, his extraordinary spoons and vessels are carved in the green with simple traditional tools: the hand axe, the maul, the froe and the crook knife, from native Somerset trees.
Spalted beech, oak, maple, apple, cherry and walnut; a pale hazel spoon - the handle with live bark still intact; others embellished and burnished with gold; a loop of hand woven reed or grass cordage or adorned with a Roman coin, a stone bead, with carved and found objects.
Each piece, with these tokens and amulets embody a strange and intriguing narrative. There are vessels, pod like or structural, the wood raw, gilded, painted, faceted or carbonised, still with all the evidence of the maker’s hand.
Mark has always been a relentless maker working across many disciplines:
as an illustrator for the Radio Times and the Listener, as a prop maker, Art director, Creative director, Designer and Artist in metal, beating and welding and melting bronze and silver to make narrative tableaux.
However, carving green wood and in particular the humble spoon have remained the constant and essential focus of his practice.
Publications
2019 Crafts Magazine, March|April Issue 277
2018 'Modern Rustic'. Country Living, Issue 11
Exhibitions
2020 ‘Elements: Wood Metal’ Gallery 57, Arundel UK
2020 ‘Wood: growth patterns’, Gallery 57 Arundel UK
2020 ‘A Presentation by Make’ Hauser & Wirth London W1
2019 ‘David Gates: in dialogue’, Make Hauser & Wirth, Bruton, Somerset
2019 ‘Levelling Traditions', Make Hauser & Wirth, Bruton, Somerset UK
2018 ‘Hole and Corner’s Home of Craftmanship’, Dunhill, Bourdon House, London UK
2018 -19 ‘Organic Form', Gallery 57, Arundel UK
2018 'A contour, a curve - The lie of the land', Gallery 57, Arundel UK
2018 'Making Arrangements’, Gallery 57 Arundel UK
2017 ‘Vessel’, The Space at Caro, Bruton UK
2016 ‘Moore at Caro’, Bruton, Somerset UK
Education BA Hons, Central School of Art & Design