Telfer Stokes: Yonder - Recent Work by The Redfern Gallery Ltd

TELFER STOKES YONDER – RECENT WORK

20 Cork Street London W1S 3HL +44 (0)20 7734 1732

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Telfer Stokes with Ramalama, 2019 (illustrated on page 47)

Telfer Stokes: An Art of Transformation

Telfer Stokes makes assemblages in metal, but perhaps surprisingly he does not see his work coming from a sculptural tradition. In previous lives he has been both painter and maker of artist’s books, and he identifies a particular continuity between the current metal pieces and the 30 years he spent in Scotland making visual books. He would say that the same freedom actuates both activities: going out with a camera and capturing images, or taking a trailer to a scrapyard and gathering cast-offs. And once the raw material has been selected, a similar process of transformation can begin, through juxtaposition and re-contextualising. The work of art is the product of endless decisions about bringing things together and trying out different combinations. The association that satisfies all those visual and emotional criteria (impossible to enumerate or describe — the artist’s personal set of filters and formal requirements), modulates the raw material into the next assemblage. Computers and photoshop put an end to making books for Stokes, who longed to be working with his hands again and quickly developed a passion for metal. 2004 was the year he made his first metal assemblages and they have gone from strength to strength in the intervening seventeen years. He deals in the manipulation of weight, texture, colour and shape, with geometric and organic form, with compilation and ultimately with fusion. Although the scrap he collects obviously has a past, generally agricultural, industrial or marine, given the East Anglian location of his sources,

Stokes does not want to know about it. He is only interested in its transformation in the present, and its future incarnation. Yet in his scrapyard visits he is not simply looking for chunks of metals that will transform well (whatever that might actually mean); he will inevitably select those that catch his eye, that seduce, besides having evident visual possibilities. So colour is an important component at this and every successive stage of the process. The studio procedures that result in Stokes’ vibrant metal alliances of forms raise an echo in the collage work of his mother Margaret Mellis, and her second husband, Francis Davison. I do not want to overemphasise similarities of approach, nor search for parallels where they do not exist, I merely wish to register a common aesthetic. Personally, I find particular resonances between Mellis’ hard-edge early collages from the 1940s, and Stokes’ metal assemblages, but not all will agree. Collage, in whatever material, is the art of inspired juxtaposition, and this is in effect what Stokes aims to encompass, but the areas investigated by each of these artists remain very different. The purpose of a scrapyard is to break up machinery that is no longer required into smaller units that may be readily shipped abroad, to China or India perhaps, where they can be usefully recycled. (It is terrifying to consider how much of our industrial heritage is vanishing in this way.) So, a large machine such as a combine harvester or printing press will be crushed down into its constituent parts. That deconstruction begins the process that continues in Stokes’ studio,

1A 2021 welded steel 17 × 18 × 16 cm

Three 2021 welded steel 26 × 34 × 7 cm

Two 2021 welded steel 15 × 20 × 5 cm

Aha 2021 welded steel 17 × 14 × 7 cm

Sweep 2013 welded steel 130 × 54 × 46 cm

of creating something new from something old. These are found parts, but not found objects in the surrealist sense, for Stokes subjects them to imaginative re-ordering, bringing them together with other chunks of metal, before a new work can be discovered and made. The process is one of radical change and redirection. Although this exhibition includes the occasional piece that is as much as a decade old, the majority of the assemblages have been made in the last four years. They are put together on the floor in Stokes’ workshop, and the size and weight of them tends to indicate early on whether they are to be floor pieces or wall pieces. To cut down the weight, Stokes is prepared to remove the other side (or back) of a boxy section of metal, but obviously this can only be done when the section is hollow. Some of the smaller pieces have been made to sit on a shelf (such as Aha, 1A, Two or Three), and others produced for very specific corner locations, but the wall is usually the intended backdrop. In fact, the wall is a crucially important element in the work, not simply a means of displaying it to best advantage. The wall for Stokes becomes a part of the assemblage, which completes it and gives it resonance, the intervals of wall visible in the openwork of the piece being almost as important as the metal shapes. (Positive and negative.) Since he was about 20, and visited the Lascaux caves — a crucial experience, as he recalls it — Stokes has been aware of the three-dimensional power of walls. At Lascaux he was much struck by the way in which the curve of the bison’s belly was painted at the point where the wall itself swelled out. The inspired use by those early artists of what was already there,

fundamentally changed his assumptions about form and space, and led eventually to his current practice. Sweep is something of an exception, being a groundbased construction made to be situated on a very particular kind of corner, where the red element can be seen to pass (as it were) through the wall. Ostensibly piercing the wall in this way is a rare strategy for Stokes: he usually respects and works with the unity of the surface. Sweep becomes in a sense part of the wall and Stokes speaks of it ‘almost furnishing the gallery’, with the other works carefully positioned in relation to it. He also speaks of the installation of objects being a kind of ballet or dance featuring the assemblages along with the walls and floor. Another exception is Kooks, which articulates an even rarer idea, having been made for a plinth, that studio or exhibition accoutrement so despised by Modernist sculptors. But Kooks is placed right on the edge of the plinth, like someone swinging their legs over a drop. This is a very different kind of corner piece to Sweep. A third corner assemblage, Singspiel, is different again, simpler and more of a wall piece, though the red element can be interpreted as continuing through the wall, as indeed can the blue bar, and thus it should be reckoned an intervention in the gallery space. Titles add another layer of meaning to the work. They can arrive during the process of making the assemblage, or appear retrospectively. Stokes keep lists of likely titles, of names or words he likes, ideas or moods he wants to explore. The giving of a name confers new status on a work, but the match between word and object must be a suitable fit, and Stokes

Kooks 2017 welded steel 72 × 39 × 23 cm

Gemut 2020 welded steel 40 × 18 × 12 cm

La Salice 2020 welded steel 67 × 100 × 10 cm

is quite prepared to change titles if they are shown not to align properly with the work. He certainly does not want to describe a piece with a title; he would much rather suggest other possibilities, other lines of thought. In the studio there are piles of metal going back years, and he finds that he quite often selects similar kinds of shapes from the scrapyard. Colour is used to distinguish one element from another. When he first started working in metal, much of the available material was pea green, a kind of institutional tint. The oldest fragments he has are in that colour, closely followed by a wide range of blues, as the use of colour in machinery became more imaginative, then red, yellow and agricultural orange. Some colours are harder to harness and manipulate than others. Stokes comments: ‘Virulent yellow — you’ve really got to know what you’re doing if you’re using that.’ The heavy work of the studio, cutting and grinding and welding, the layering and joining of forms, interlacing them, is a process of merging and eventual emerging. It is an unconscious, instinctive procedure, a gathering and conflation of forms, an undertaking of integration and synthesis. In this exhibition you may notice a shell form, perhaps originally from a fountain. To include such an easily readable element is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Stokes wants to attract the attention of viewers, but not to spell out any narrative line. The scallop is a symbol of pilgrimage, but Stokes is not referring to this, he is simply using a shape he finds poignant. The transformation of raw material is essentially a constructional problem. If Stokes takes a line or length of metal, he has to discover how to stop it, or it

will (in theory), go on for ever. The obvious way is to turn it, and if you turn it into a curve it will eventually close itself as a circle. However potent and evocative round forms can be, he finds imagery that focuses solely on the circle too limiting, so he has had to seek out other alternatives, and the horseshoe shape, or variants on it, is an effective alternative. The horseshoe is at once open and containing: Hardstanding and La Salice are such structures. La Salice seems to me to be one of the most effortlessly beautiful assemblages that Stokes has produced. The combination of shaped colour and telling line could scarcely be bettered: this is visual poetry at its most satisfying. The open form can also be like a jaw, which is what seems to be suggested in Lava. If the two sides of the jaw are the pinkyorange bar above and the rusted curved section below, the black Lava plate is the jaw’s hinge. The difference between this one and the other horseshoe pieces is the closure of the entrance, though using a white ridge of mechanical teeth is a brilliant way of reinforcing the idea of the mouth while also shutting it. Get Away is another open-ended structure, and the eye can travel as freely along its outside edge as along its inside. This is a deliberately more awkward coalition of forms, a lot less lyrical, but no less effective. Another question which inevitably arises from prolonged viewing of these pieces is how much do they owe to the concept of three-dimensional form, and how much to painting? (Plane and line.) Stokes encourages his pieces to hang flat to the wall, but some emerge and protrude more forcefully than others. Sashay is a chunky little assemblage that again suggests an open jaw, this time ready to

NR33 2017 welded steel 32 × 84 × 8 cm

Singspiel 2016 welded steel 143 × 70 × 20 cm

Shout Out 2017 welded steel 74 × 71 × 19 cm

Sashay 2011 welded steel 36 × 40 × 20 cm

pounce and engulf. Everything is focused on the electric gap between the jaws: the maxilla (or upper jaw) looks particularly threatening, the mandible (or lower jaw) scooping in to maximise damage. Deftly composed, this piece is more determinedly three-dimensional than some of the others, which hug the wall. Sashay hangs foursquare in our space, assertive and dynamic. If the compositions which hang flattest to the wall are the most like paintings, it should be observed at once that Stokes does not as a rule paint his assemblages. He would never paint a whole section or element, the colour is most definitely given not applied, and only ever ‘restored’ after welding, to disguise the seams. Some of the more linear works, such as Being There, Flourish, Lament, Nancurvis, NR33, Shout Out, Tenderhooks and The Revenant (the largest piece in the show), seem absolutely natural and authentic in their straddling of the gallery walls. But it is no small task making utilitarian bits of cast-off metal, shaped and punched and perforated, into something new and significant. There are many failures which we don’t see, which are taken apart again, and elements of which are sometimes re-used. As Stokes ruefully admits: ‘There are a lot of unsuccessful conjunctions.’ A great deal of time in the studio is spent organising the material and trying out possible combinations. This process of trial and error continues in Stokes’ mind when he returns home after the day’s work and continues to think about what he has done. Intriguingly, he says it helps not to look at it when he’s thinking about his work. As he says: ‘I’m incredibly limited by my material — by what I can pick up in the scrapyard.’ But this restriction is also a source of strength, as it forces inspiration to work potently within a narrow gauge.

When, for instance, the artist chances upon an element which is both as emphatic and as static as a complete circle, a challenge has been accepted, to dislodge it from its past meaning and give it a new identity. In Yarning, Stokes has attempted this, partly by crowning the perfect shape with a dunce’s cap of unavoidable blue, and then by tripping the circle with a red-black and green-yellow fault line right across the central area of the assemblage, thus rechanneling its power along new circuits. The result is an edgy triumph. The weightless elegance of Being There or Flourish is balanced by the tough abraded harshness of Carried Forward, Nimo and Garoup, all floor pieces, and very much earthbound statements best read from above, which would not hang successfully on the wall. There is nothing fragile about the constructions of Telfer Stokes, which are solidly and determinedly resolved, hefty chunks of metal welded together in new configurations, yet often with a delicacy and grace deliciously beguiling. As this exhibition amply demonstrates, he is adept at finding new and emotive combinations of cast metal, and making inspired assemblages from them. This has to be his finest and most various exhibition yet. Andrew Lambirth

Lament 2019 welded steel 64 × 37 × 9 cm

Flourish 2016 welded steel 63 × 69 × 6 cm

Being There 2020 welded steel 79 × 145 × 10 cm

Nancurvis 2015 welded steel 120 × 100 × 40 cm

Pettish 2020 welded steel 45 × 41 × 6 cm

Tenderhooks 2015 welded steel 84 × 95 × 5 cm

The Revenant 2020 welded steel 120 × 153 × 17 cm

Diver 2020 welded steel 72 × 91 × 8 cm

Comeback 2014 welded steel 94 × 79 × 11 cm

Parkour 2016 welded steel 50 × 111 × 5 cm

Leitmotif 2011 welded steel 89 × 49 × 8 cm

Lash 2019 welded steel 61 × 72 × 12 cm

Chimera 2018 welded steel 93 × 38 × 10 cm

Farrar 2018 welded steel 56 × 30 × 11 cm

Absurdities 1 to 10 2011 welded steel 35 × 30 × 6 cm

Mode 2018 welded steel 32 × 34 × 4 cm

Unheimlich 2019 welded steel 61 × 144 × 13 cm

Lee Roy 2019 welded steel 64 × 92 × 14 cm

Apropos 2020 welded steel 46 × 45 × 8 cm

Ramalama 2019 welded steel 72 × 82 × 10 cm

Yonder 2020 welded steel 68 × 155 × 10 cm

Box Set 2020 welded steel 108 × 93 × 6 cm

Motif 2020 welded steel 84 × 146 × 10 cm

Lava 2020 welded steel 52 × 56 × 10 cm

Twiddle 2020 welded steel 58 × 58 × 4 cm

Wally 2021 welded steel 27 × 40 × 6 cm

Yarning 2017 welded steel 89 × 83 × 6.5 cm

Nimo 2021 welded steel 22 × 33 × 12 cm

Get Away 2021 welded steel 57 × 116 × 10 cm

Lucida 2021 welded steel 20 × 27 × 6 cm

Familial 2018 welded steel 44 × 36 × 8 cm

Hardstanding 2021 welded steel 60 × 51 × 7 cm

Replay 2021 welded steel 59 × 84 × 9 cm

Carried Forward 2021 welded steel 16 × 46 × 62 cm

Garoup 2021 welded steel 16 × 68 × 63 cm

BIOGRAPHY Born 1940, St Ives, Cornwall. Studied at the Slade, and had a Beckmann Fellowship to do a postgraduate at Brooklyn Museum Art School, New York in 1962. Founded imprint WEPRODUCTIONS (Artist Books) in collaboration with Helen Douglas.

Essay © Andrew Lambirth, 2021 Catalogue © The Redfern Gallery, 2021 Photography of works: Douglas Atfield Design: Graham Rees Design Works © Telfer Stokes 2021 Published to coincide with the exhibition:

Started to make sculptural objects, exhibited at Kettles Yard Open 2008 North House Gallery 2010 & 2013 Austin Desmond Fine Art 2015 Nunns Yard Gallery 2016 The Redfern Gallery 2018 & 2021

TELFER STOKES YONDER –RECENT WORK 3 – 26 November 2021 Published by The Redfern Gallery, London 2021 ISBN: 978-0-948460-89-0

front cover:

Sweep , 2013 illustrated on page 8 inside front cover:

Yarning , 2017 (detail) illustrated on page 59 opposite:

Shout Out , 2017 (detail) illustrated on page 17 back cover:

The Revenant , 2020 (detail) illustrated on page 29

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