André Wallace

Vessel I

Womb, bath, cradle
shadow on an ultrasound
a caul holding dark promise
cradle, bowl, bath
damp child slips through your fingers
hides his growing body from you
bath, boat, chair
adrift in a lake of thought
soaking love-pains away
chair, cradle, shell
prise off the carapace
whisper in the tiny ears
shell, boat, cradle
so scared, the crossed feet cover
his balls, knees protect the heart
cradle, casket, boat
head rises from his strong neck,
full of dreams, flies in amber
boat, casket, tomb
once-loved lump of a man
lost in ash-coloured light
tomb, cradle, womb

Jenny Mayor c 2010

We do love our sculpture it is a valuable asset to our contempory art
collection
Phyllis Rapp

Andre Wallace’s sculpture shows a total transformation of the observed – into a different medium and on to quite another scale – without for a moment being academic.
Edward Lucie Smith

Wallace's current mix of figuration and abstraction allows him to approach the forefront of contemporary endeavour, for his new work is well worth the attention it will generate.
Andrew Lambirth

Wallace needed a metaphor for the individual¹s journey though life, which, characteristically he wanted to render both general and specific. In effect, he wanted something which would refer as much to the real as to the imaginary, to the past as to the future.
Andrew Lambirth

The work in this exhibition constitutes an exploration of form and meaning inextricably intertwined. Wallace speculates on the individual conduct of life by way of sculptures and drawings which evoke the rites of passage. The personal odyssey of existence is alluded to in images of pared-down energy and simplicity.
Andrew Lambirth

Wallace is not only interested in the formal qualities of sculpture but poses problems of an intellectual nature.
Linda Bolton – Arts Review

Wallace chimes serenity of spirit with the supreme tactility of the materials he uses – whether it be the suave textures of carved Portland stone, the silky smoothness of cast pewter, or the coarser grain of bronze. His is a haptic understanding which demands a physical as well as an intellectual response.
Andrew Lambirth

Translation and transformation are what this show is about . What is seen is linked to what is felt. The artist asks himself, not merely ‘What do I see?’ but ‘How do I react to what I see’, and then tries to make a single artistic statement which will convincingly answer both these questions simultaneously.
Edward Lucie Smith

I have lived with three of Andre’s stone heads for a decade now.  They are beautifully stylised; very calm; and I shall never tire of them.

Dame Stephanie Shirley
Founder, Prior’s Court School

The spherical or oval forms, reduced to the essence of their humanity and to the brink of pure abstraction [a clear echo of Brancusi here].
Andrew Lambirth

These abstracted ‘heads’may approach the machine-like, yet their ultimate human identity is never in doubt.
Andrew Lambirh

Instead of depicting a complete body, Wallace chooses to show us only the head – the individual in microcosm. It is a theme he investigates further in crisply carved Portland stone, or in cast and polished pewter. Wallace varies his imagery from the more obviously naturalistic to the more abstract and helmet-like.
Andrew Lambirth

The size is deliberately restricted: these small pieces are made for the hand and need to be touched and held.
Andrew Lambirth

The size is deliberately restricted: these small pieces are made for the hand and need to be touched and held.
Andrew Lambirth

The size is deliberately restricted: these small pieces are made for the hand and need to be touched and held. Andrew Lambirth

Wallace is clearly aiming for a massive – yet at the same time modest – simplicity, an archaic quality associated with the sculptures of ancient Greece.
Andrew Lambirth

The human figure remains the focus of Wallace’s research, but overlaid with references to the wider realm of nature as well as classical mythology.
Andrew Lambirth

….with small sculptures of rare intimacy and presence… these small pieces are made for the hand and need to be touched and held.
Andrew Lambirth

…..but in another he mounts the five etching plates in heavy pewter surrounds as floor sculptures, all reflecting torsoes and highlights. [These are the Navigator series, which complement and extend earlier Journeyman series.]
Andrew Lambirth

…..but in another he mounts the five etching plates in heavy pewter surrounds as floor sculptures, all reflecting torsoes and highlights. [ These are the Navigator series, which complement and extend earlier Journeyman series. ]
Andrew Lambirth

Another accomplished realist sculptor is Andre Wallace…. his little personages are presented in such a way that it almost seems as if we are looking at them through the wrong end of a telescope.
Edward Lucie Smith

Wallace’s work holds something in common with the work of Aristide Maillol and Frank Dobson. Undoubtedly, Wallace’s large- scale work has a heroism and monumentality, a relaxed classicsm, that both these sculptors evinced. There is evident in the work of all three a similar poise, confidence, and above all, formal clarity.
Andrew Lambirth

The 3 dimensional, multi-faceted viewpoints invite the onlooker to move around the work to see every aspect and silhouette and every modulation from highlights to the deepest shadows. There is no prescriptive meaning.
Sue O’Brien

The Boating series could just be about people in boats, but the work has classical references, to the Boatman taking people along the river of life or the Ferryman who transports from this world to the next.
Sue O’Brien

The boat has become a framework, just as a picture has its boundaries, so the rigid structure of the boat provides a formal contrast to the figures held by its compact shape.
Sue O’ Brien

Andre Wallace offers a series of meditations on the human predicament which recall the gnomic wisdom of the Chinese sage ­to travel hopefully is better thing than to arrive.
Andrew Lambirth