A sequence of poems by WWC member Greg Freeman about four statues in Woking town centre by Woking-born Sean Henry has received a nod of approval from the sculptor.
After completing his 64-line sequence about the statues, Greg sent it to Sean, and received this message back: “That is amazing – thank you so much. There is really nothing better than a creative response to art and I feel very honoured when anyone takes the sculptures as a starting point for a new creative endeavour. You have also accurately captured some of the thoughts that went into the works, as well as bringing in ideas of your own which feel somehow ‘right’.”
Greg said: “I was bowled over to receive this very generous message from Sean. I have been an admirer of his work ever since the statues appeared in the town, and really believe they add something to Woking.”
He added: “My poems represent a series of back-stories for the figures, as I see them. Of course, everyone will view them differently. I’ve also added a new title since I sent them to Sean. ‘All The Lonely People’ comes from the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby. I hope he doesn’t mind too much!”
The four Sean Henry statues in Woking are Woman (Being Looked At) at the entrance to the Peacocks shopping centre; Standing Man in Jubilee Square; The Wanderer outside Woking rail station; and Seated Man, inside the station, on a seat on platform one.
Originally five painted bronze sculptures by Sean Henry were installed in Woking town centre to coincide with his exhibition at the Lightbox art gallery in 2017 . The final cast of Catafalque (2003) will rejoin the Woking collection when the Victoria Square development is completed. You can watch a video of Sean Henry talking about his Lightbox exhibition here
Sean Henry’s work includes private and public installations in many locations across Europe and the US. He studied at Farnham School of Art (now University for the Creative Arts) before taking a BA in ceramics at Bristol University. He has had more than 30 solo shows during his career. His work is regularly exhibited by galleries in London, New York, Stockholm, and Brussels, and his sculptures can be found in public collections in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, US and elsewhere. His works include Walking Man in London’s Holland Park (1998) and Man with Potential Selves in the centre of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (2001). He completed the UK’s first permanent offshore sculpture, Couple, in 2007, a 13m high sculpture located 300 metres off the coast of Northumberland at Newbiggin. Other works include Standing Man in Stockholm (2010), and Lying Man at the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Michigan, US (2011). More recently Seated Figure, originally located within the North York Moors National Park (2017), has now been moved to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield.
Sean Henry has described the theme of his work as “the tension between the making and staging of figures that seem to belong to the real world, and the degree to which they echo our experiences and sympathies”.
Greg’s ‘All The Lonely People’ is an example of ekphrastic poetry, a verbal description of a visual work of art. You can read the full poem here
Greg Freeman co-runs a monthly poetry open-mic night at the Lightbox art gallery in Woking. His poetry pamphlet collection Trainspotters was published by Indigo Dreams in 2015.
Woking Writers Circle 