Portfolio l Figures for the Landscape and Interior
The sculptures represented here are very much on the edge of what is achievable using materials such as high-fired clay, steel and polymer plaster. Ultimately, they are intended as maquettes for developing outside works on a larger-than-life scale in bronze and steel.
Highly finished pieces in their own right, they are unique and many stand in interior collections - being of an accessible scale, but, technically, their true purpose is to explore what is possible in sculpting and engineering these materials in order to appear to defy their earthbound limitations.
"There are two distinct strands to my figurative style. This one is a cool and measured response to a profound sense of unrest..."
A Public Art Commission in Bronze and Steel —
4 metres x 3 metres approximately.
“Flight of the Langoustine”
Awarded an inaugural place on the The Hove Plinth
The Hove Plinth, King's Esplanade, South East Coast, England
2020 - 2021 — work in progress:
Watch videos of the sculpture in progress and Pierre’s sculpting method for making the figures life-size:
click the two buttons below.
"There are two distinct strands to my figurative style. This one is a cool and measured response to a profound sense of unrest.
In this work, figures fly in defiance or are challenged by their environments. They 'trippingly' negotiate upheaval or uncertainties — each one is a balancing act, a metaphor for a precarious state of living or existence.
Androgynous and anonymous human figures tilt and fall away - on and off objects that also teeter on a chaotic or shifting stage.
Figures may be set free against strongly convergent lines, shapes and forms — usually composed around the compass, square and angle — the corner stones of architectural practice.
They hold the air, appearing to float or flee, their means of support seemingly nebulous. It is sculpture that pokes fun at gravity — an exercise in a perfect, but disquieting balance.
I use illusion to position each form and figure so that the composition of the piece tricks the eye.
Symmetry brings rhythm to the work and I contrast this by referencing the anarchic articulation of modern dance choreography.
I often prefer to sculpt the human form dynamically and classically, though I may equally choose to take anatomy as a point of departure, simplifying this to a resonance of the figure, paring it down to a cut-out or silhouette or finding energy in a perfectly still figure."
Archival — Figures for the Landscape and Interior cont'd
Reviews
“The art of movement and the living form provoke in Pierre’s work a refined passion.
His deepest love is for his human figures...
Always faceless, the focus of expression is in their bodies, taut and caught in exaggerated poses. Often grouped in unearthly compositions these figures truly transcend the confines of the ground, being light and delicate, balancing improbably on geometric planes, perched or floating freely on forms forged to suit their creator’s purpose. They are laconic and profound, frivolous and boisterous, occupying the air like a flock of birds.
Frequently allegorical, the effect is felt, not thought, not unlike the experience of gazing upon a meticulously calculated Japanese garden whose simple, curving lines embody the essence of power and strength. Each one-off piece informs the rest; it is here that they acquire their astonishing articulacy”.
F. Pickering. Abridged article CM Magazine first edition.
“Much of Diamantopoulo’s work is focused on movement in sculptures that apparently defy gravity.
Figures appear to float freely in improbable spatial compositions created through geometry
and optical illusion. The strands of his practice are, in the main, allegorical.
Figures fly, dance, run, jump, walk or cavort with a great sense of fun in sculptures that formally oppose the earthbound nature of the materials from which they are made”.
Thinking Big — Concepts for Twenty-First Century
British Sculpture — Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.
Catalogue extract: Cass Sculpture Foundation.