Pages

These five pieces are each entitled 'Pages' and are marble reliefs with lead inserts, each measuring 255 mm by 178 mm.

Hinge

Hinge is a piece sited in the Gibberd Garden in Harlow, Essex - established by Sir Frederick Gibberd and continued after his death by his wife Lady Patricia.  She, in particular, maintained a relationship with the artist and collected additional pieces alongside those her husband had purchased.  Hinge is the largest work in their collection.  Carved from Locharbriggs sandstone it measures 60 x 60 x 38 inches.

Area, Collage & Graphite, 70 x100 (framed), 1997

Made at a time when the artist was exploring new directions in his work, Area uses the grid form - that previously made an appearance in the early bas-relief marbles.  It presages the works that formed the basis of the exhibition 'Division As Structure' that took place at the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin in 2001.  In this work extensive scratching on the surface creates the image and the use of graphite as a wash is introduced.

Adrift

Another low bas-relief work from the 1980's. Adrift continues the tradition of utilising found marks and formal tropes occasioned by the use of found pieces of marble.

All At Sea

This piece was exhibited in the exhibition 'The Cutting Edge' - Sculpture 1977 - 87 that opened in Bolton Museum & Art Gallery on 11th April 1987 and subsequently toured to the Usher Gallery, Lincoln and Wolverhampton Art Gallery. It is in the collection of Lady Patricia Gibberd, an early supporter of Mason's work following the commission by her husband , Sir Frederick Gibberd, for Harlow New Town.

The piece utilises a fragment of Carrara Marble, a frequent decision to exploit the naturally occurring shape of the material within which a dynamic formal construction emerges. Like many works from this period the forms are in part determined by the internal relationships between them with just the suggestion of externally arrived at characteristics. This ambiguity of form and subsequent meaning is often found in much of work of the artist. Equally evident is the delight in the interplay between the surface finishes, the rough chisel marked with that of the flat polished. It is also an early example of the occasional introduction of other material, paint and lead, that crops up sporadically in work over the years. The sculpture is approximately 14" high.

Drawings

Paul Mason was a prolific draughtsman - not for the sculptures themselves (such drawings are few and infrequent other than occasionally for public art works) but more as a practice in its own right. In the 00's this practice took on a major role with a great deal of resulting work, some on a relatively large scale. Indeed the number and variety of works is such that identifying them all as regards titles and/or dates is difficult.

This is one such work - it measures 99 x 68.5 cms and is drawn in charcoal. It deploys frottage to convey part of the surface texture and uses a wild and relatively uncontrolled range of marks to suggest a whirling vortex. The imagery is such that it might date from the period 2000 to 2001 when Mason was Artist In Residence at Gloucester Cathedral - it bears resemblance to the sculpture Root.

Harbour, 1983 is a small landscape based relief, some 7" in height. In the essay of the catalogue for the exhibition 'The Cutting Edge' (Bolton Museum & Gallery and touring, 1987) Peter Wheeler said

(it) is a small and spontaneous looking piece. Its size and apparent rapidity of execution contradict conventional notions of carved sculpture as difficult and long-winded. For Mason, working against inherited ideas either of technique or purpose and expectations of stone, is a way of remaining alive to its potential, and extending its language.