Nicholas Hare's stunning railway sleeper sculptures
Two years ago you sold me some excellent jarrah railway sleepers. Since then I have been making sculptures, working from models up to some full size ones, in steel and with railway sleepers. Most of them are on my website below. I hope you like them. I will send photos of the ones with railway sleepers in the hope that you might like to include them on your enjoyable website.
The recycled railway sleepers are made of jarrah, a very hard and rot-resistant Australian hardwood. Despite the hardness of the wood, the sleepers bear the imprint of the granite chippings on which they lay, caused by the thousands of trains that they have carried. The sculptures use very few fixings: their stability is usually due to the action of gravity and friction – the sleepers weigh about 70kg each.
I am an architect-turned-sculptor. In 2018 I retired from the architectural practice to concentrate on developing my ideas for large-scale sculptures. The new Production Hub at Glyndebourne was my last architectural project and nine sculptural works there are the first to be publicly exhibited. All of the pieces represent explorations of spatial geometry built up of simple forms embodied in particular materials, for instance square or triangular metal plates, or recycled railway sleepers. In an increasingly digital world, they are intended to help re-establish a sense of palpable and enjoyable physical reality. My method is to explore possibilities using models, but the works are conceived as being quite large, so that they can be experienced by walking up to them or under them. In that way, and in their sense of geometric spatial order, I suppose they are quite architectural. They are intended be enjoyable objects in their own right, whose forms and material and spaces can be experienced from all angles.
Nick
NH sculpture
www.nhsculpture.com
RAILWAY SLEEPERS USED
Tropical hardwood Jarrah relay grade used railway sleepers
RailwaySleepers.com Says..
Over the years I have experienced and enjoyed thousands of railway sleeper projects all over the world from humble vegetable raised beds, to ambitious landscaping transformations. Dramatic railway sleeper steps in New Zealand mountains. Eye catching railway sleeper walls clinging to valleys around temples in Thailand. Humble railway sleeper houses in southern Chile. Quirky and humerous railway sleeper signs in western Australia. So many unique and precious designs that lift the heart or bring a smile to your face. And Nick's wonderful railway sleeper sculptures add to that amazing world of railway sleeper creations. They are dramatic, stunning, inventive and playful. Solid yet etherial. Other worldly yet concretely practical. Wonderful.