Zachary Eastwood-Bloom: Rewired is an exhibition of mainly new work produced in response to the end of life and death of the artist’s father who was himself an artist.
The show opens with these two pages found folded together among Eastwood-Bloom’s late father’s possessions. Norman Eastwood’s beautiful handwriting about abstraction sits next to drawings which lead directly into the work by his sculptor son.
The starting point for much of my work has been from a place of loss and grief so I was interested to see his response to such a life-changing experience.
It is visually very different to mine yet I can see connections: the ritualism of repetition (which is never exactly the same) and a sense of calm from the act of physically making.
Here he has built a series of geometric clay forms, painted them a deep black then hung in a horizontal line. Could they interlock? The pieces look very familiar; the shadows they cast are as intriguing as the shapes themselves.
Eastwood-Bloom’s geometry is hard-edged but not harsh as it is all hand-crafted.
“CPU – Central Processing Unit” extends its influence through the interplay of shadows. The entire work is of walnut wood and constructed by hand in what must have been a meditative process of repetition. This in itself can calm and soothe the mind, something much needed when grieving.
The drawings fascinated me. Due to reflection issues I was unable to photograph many. In this one each block ought to be the same size according to the printed grid paper but there’s an obvious difference of scale. Something so simple doesn’t quite make sense. Each block should be the same yet isn’t. Is it illusion or reality? See if you can work it out.
The show is on at Pangolin London till the 23rd of December.