Show of Hands

I have long fancied trying to combine portraiture and caricature and so set myself the project of creating two sculptures of Steve Knightley and Phil Beer ( Show of Hands ) as a present for David, who introduced me to their music. It always strikes me that Steve and Phil are part of a long tradition going back to medieval strolling minstrels and so the idea of fashioning the sculptures with a nod to medieval grotesques seemed appropriate.

I hope a good deal of affection comes across in these pieces. I love their music and one song in particular, ‘I Promise You’, is particularly important to me – I listened to it a lot as I went through treatment for tonsil cancer. I particularly like the live version on ‘As You Were’, but here’s the original from ‘Country Life’ – give it a listen.

The casts are in two different forms of Jesmonite – one a mock Terracotta, the other a mock Sandstone. I presented Steve and Phil a set each and if you want to see them next to the real thing, Steve kindly posted on Facebook.