Two forms are perched as if staring out at the sea. Each rests at the edge of equilibrium, balanced as it inclines towards the other. Each is in a state of stasis, stillness, but barely so. There is tension, they are drawn together, yet if either leaned any further toward the other it would risk a loss of stability. But would that be a collapse? Or would it be a leap into vulnerability?

These are installed near the tomb at the bottom of the ‘Tower of La Mancha’ at the Château de la Napoule in southern France. The bottom level of the tower is the tomb of Henry and Marie Clews (their sarcophagi are still visible), the couple who purchased the chateau in 1918, rebuilt it, and turned it first into a sculpture studio for Henry, and then into the La Napoule Art Foundation. Above the tomb was my studio, surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean Sea. The third level has an empty room that is entirely inaccessible — no door or staircase reaches it. The Clews designed it during their lifetimes to be a place for their spirits to meet after their death. So right from the start of my fellowship, I knew I needed to explore this story somehow, to express it in my own sculptural vocabulary, and this is where my idea for a pair of anthropomorphic yet ’empty’ forms, staring out to the sea, not quite able to be in contact with each other — yet clearly responding to the other — came from.

This is a work I created during my one-year fellowship at the Château de la Napoule in southern France, as part of being awarded the 2022-2023 Prix Henry Clews from the La Napoule Art Foundation.