Recognising Tonbridge Recognised

The Steve Dilworth sculpture 'Bird Skull' was recognised on Twitter by the E.M. Forster Theatre, and to be honest they had a 'head' start as it sits directly outside the theatre entrance at Tonbridge School.

Dilworth and his work is worth a mention here, and to be honest when it comes to art I can rarely stop myself giving a small personal critique.

Although not a local man, Dilworth did attend the now iconic Maidstone School of Art in the 60's.  A time when David Hockney was an instructor at the school, The Kinks played on campus,  and art and popular culture exploded onto the scene, and maybe this Kentish link is why Tonbridge School commisioned him for this work.

Or, was the reason that Dilworth is an artist with a difference. He quietly does, and has been doing for many years, what Damien Hirst became famous for.  The material Dilworth often uses for his art contains dead animals and bones, many retrieved after death from the remote Isle of Harris on which Steve has made his home. He works closely with the landscape as he creates beautiful objects using material mostly drawn from the Island such as driftwood, bog oak, iron, shells, stone and even the surrounding sea water.  Information on some sculptures read like a list of ingredients for a recipe: 'guillemot, oak, rope, elm, silver coins'.

"A bird is a bird, but it is also a material. I’m trying to find ways of using materials simply. What you see is what you get, and then you get more than what you see,"

Imagine for one moment that the skull of a normal bird usually weighs about 1% of the birds total bodyweight and is extremely lightweight.  Dilworths beautiful 'Bird Skull' at Tonbridge School is bold and exaggerated in size, and maybe reflects the strength in the delicate skull that has to take the stresses of taking off, flying, and landing.  The highly polished sculpture seems to be in two parts and I have wondered what might lay deep inside.  Does this sculpture have an animal interior, life retreived after death or part of the landscape from the windswept remote Island?

I, for one, will be in the front row when Steve Dilworth comes to the Cawthorne Lecture Theatre at Tonbridge School on Thursday March 8 at 8pm. He'll be talking about his work, influences and working practice, and I hope to find out more about the 'Bird Skull'.  Will he reveal any deep secrets of what lies within the sculpture, if anything does at all.  I hope so!