Translations by Stephen B Hurst

TRANSLATIONS

My father took me round the Government workshops in Cairo when I was a small child. Situated in the old Kasr el Nil barracks they included machine shops, woodworkers shops, instrument makers and a brass foundry for casting scientific, agricultural and hydrological instruments. I knew that being in the foundry on a casting day was a great privilege. The darkness, the blackened walls and black sand covering the floor, all added to a sense drama that reached its climax when the lid of the roaring furnace was removed and the metal judged hot enough to pour. I was entranced by the brilliant golden colour of the liquid copper alloy as it flowed from the crucible into the black mouths of the sand-moulds. I was hooked; the extraordinary, almost Wagnerian, drama of the casting process; the transmutation of a form made in one material into another, has remained with me all my life.

“Translations” is a sub-group of the ‘War Toys’. Selected sculptures made in wood were treated as the ‘Patterns’ in the engineering/casting sense. In my own foundry I tended to make much simpler patterns or, more frequently, made the object to be cast direct in wax or used materials that could be burnt out. ‘Snake-Pistol’ was one of the first of my translations from wood to bronze moulded at Pangolin Foundry. A wax replica was then cast in bronze. If one travels back in time half a century there were two main means of casting metal objects. The one used in the engineering industry was the sand process which used a pattern made of wood or metal. The lost wax method was (and is) more complicated, involves a variety of skills and was – inevitably – more expensive. The pattern (The sculpture) is moulded in a flexible material from which a wax replica is produced. Stage two is the perfection of the wax which is then coated (Invested) with a refractory material which makes up the mould. Once set the mould is baked in a kiln until the wax melts out and then further baked to remove all the wax gas. Finally the mould (or void) is filled with molten metal, usually bronze. Once the metal is set and cooled the refractory material is removed, the metal is cleaned and then the sculpture fettled and finished by specialist metal finishers.

SNAKE PISTOL (BRONZE)
2012
Bronze
Edition of 6
58 cm wide

SNAKE PISTOL (PAINTED WOOD)
2012
Painted Wood
Unique
58 cm wide

THE FOUR HORSEMEN
OF THE APOCALYSE
2012
Painted Wood
Unique
58 cm wide