Original artwork description:

'Assumption' is a small artwork, 13cm x 13cm, in gilded low relief on an oak panel.

A nude female figure in raised, matte gold appears to float on a glossy, burnished golden sphere in a sparkling atmosphere created by tooling burnished gold leaf.

The title derives from my interest in early Italian art and refers to historical paintings of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, although the subject here is not necessarily religious. The female figure surrenders herself to a state of paradise, her body tense and strained backwards while gently supported and lifted by the slightly decentred sphere, like a bubble floating upwards. The tooled background seems to effervesce around the figure, receiving and absorbing it.

The artwork was made by coating an oak panel in white gesso and then building up and sculpting the figure into low relief in the same gesso. The whole was then covered in several layers of red bole - a kind of red-brown clay bound in animal skin glue - and gilded with 23 karat gold leaf. On the figure, the gold was patted down, to conform to the sculpted gesso but left mat, giving it a sheen which catches the light. The rest of the gilded surface was burnished to a deep, smooth, dark surface. A punching tool was then tapped with a hammer onto the gold to create thousands of individual circular punch marks in the gilded background.

The sides of the artwork are painted white. It has been signed and dated on the reverse and a d-ring has been attached so that it is ready to hang as it is. It could, however, also be displayed in a frame, for example a white box frame.

Materials used:

Oak panel, gesso, red bole, 23 karat gold leaf

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