Working on site: David Nash in the Wood Quarry at Kew

David Nash in the Wood Quarry at Kew
Image courtesy of Kew Gardens

In his latest exhibition David Nash at Kew - A Natural Gallery at The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, David Nash RA has his studio in the gardens. Except in his case the studio is a Wood Quarry and his tool of choice is a chainsaw.

This is the first time Nash has shown his process of making art as part of a major exhibition. It is also his first wood quarry in ten years.

This is a video of David Nash working in his Wood Quarry at Kew Gardens.

In a career spanning 40 years, the artist David Nash has created over 2,000 sculptures out of wood, many of them monumental in scale.
kewgardens - David Nash at Kew - the Wood Quarry

In my last post, about artists working on construction sites, I commented on how the artists told me that the art comes out of what presents itself.

It's very much the same thing when David Nash works with wood. The weight of the wood dictates that most of the work is done where the tree grew. This means that when he works around the world, he works with the trees and the wood which is indigenous to the place.

In other words, he responds to his environment - much as the artists do who work within a building site.

Yesterday I went to view the exhibition. I didn't get round it all (ran out of time plus ran out of space on my SD card!) and one of the parts I didn't get to was the wood quarry. So I was very pleased to discover this morning that Kew Gardens have published a video of David Nash on the Kew Gardens YouTube video channel which shows him working in the Wood Quarry and explaining how he work.

Later this year, works created by David Nash in the Wood Quarry will be appearing in the exhibition at Kew.

I'm just annotating a video I've created (I've just learned how to annotate film so as to indicates titles of work!) and am drafting a review of the exhibition which will be published later today.

In the meantime, enjoy the sight of an artist at work in the landscape.