Peter Randall-Page
In: Time Machine: Anciet Egypt and Contemporary Art. Edited by James Putnam and W. Vivian Davies. Published by the Trustees of the British Museum and the Institute of International Visual Arts, 1994, p. 42.
For me, Egyptian sculpture at its best is unsurpassed and the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery in the British Museum contains pieces which have been of great importance in the development of my own sculpture. It is above all its ability to convey a sense of internal dynamics which makes Egyptian carving so powerful. It is the relationship between surface and volume, the tension between skin and flesh, which can draw the imagination inwards and towards the centre. This has become a major preoccupation in my own sculpture and is epitomised by many of the works in this gallery.
My piece is based on the Ouroboros, the emblematic serpent of Ancient Egypt and Greece that bites its own tail and returns to express the concept of infinity.
In Egyptian mythology the image of a snake is strongly associated with the concept of time. The Ouroboros can be a metaphor for spatial as well as temporal infinity - the created world bordering everywhere on the uncreated, in the same way as the future continually borders on the past.
In recent years I have made a number of pieces based on an endless coil or loop folded and knotted into densely packed compositions, and the paradoxical image of the Ouroboros is a development of this idea. The twelve meandering loops continue endlessly, yet disappear inside themselves. The coils thicken into a membrane and a lip where an infinite process begins and ends.
Needless to say, it is a great honour to be able to exhibit this new work in such noble and ancient company.
This sculpture will eventually form part of a permanent installation in Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland. When finally installed, a tree will be planted in the central space.