The Worshipful Company of Turners

Supporting the Craft, City and Charity for over four hundred years

Eleanor Lakelin, Column Vessel I acquired by MAD

We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of Eleanor Lakelin’s beautiful Column Vessel I by the MAD Museum of Art and Design in New York as part of their permanent collection.

Made from a Horse Chestnut tree felled near Reading Gaol, where Oscar Wilde spent his time in jail, the piece speaks to Eleanor’s ongoing commitment to highlighting the alive-ness and warmth of wood as material as well as her concern with the undulating forces of nature and time. In her selection of the ancient and evocative column shape – her practice also explores amphorae and vessels, pillars and stumps – Eleanor asks her audiences to reflect upon humanity’s impact on the natural world, and vice versa, and to postulate the flows of history from ancient civilisations to the present day. She explores rebirth and survival, and her pieces are testament to our ongoing discourse with the natural world and where we place ourselves within it.

The idea of time and the rhythm of growth and decay is at the root of my practice. I explore the layers built up over time and the wearing away of these layers through the eroding powers of natural elements.’

Congratulations to Eleanor. This beautiful work can be viewed at the MAD Museum of Art and Design New York in 2023, where it will be shown with an accompanying film following Eleanor’s process from tree to plinth.

Taken from Sarah Myerscough Gallery


Eleanor at Sarah Myerscough Gallery

Eleanor at Cockpit Arts

Eleanor, winner of the Turners’ Award at Cockpit 2011

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