- Services
- Design
- Project management
- Materials
- Corten steel
- Bronze
- Client
- Ashford and St Peter's Hospital NHS Trust
Overview
Harry Gray was commissioned to create the HELD bronze sculpture for Ashford and St Peter's Hospital NHS Trust to recognise staff and carers for their outstanding service during the covid pandemic, and to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the NHS.
Project detail
To make a sculpture to convey the experience of the staff during the pandemic was very challenging. My father was in a hospice during the first weeks of the lockdown and it was very difficult to be allowed access to be with him. So as well as providing amazing care the medical staff all around the country had to provide that reassuring extra touch that family members normally give and so a sculpture about hands seemed the right response.
I knew that medical staff would cast a critical eye over my work especially when it came to the anatomy of the hands and so I made a detailed study and persuaded my surgeon friend George Cormac to come the studio to see my modelling of the anatomy and pass comment. I also needed to model the stretchy fabric of the glove and this was just as difficult.
Once the modelling was complete, the work of mould-making could start under the expert guidance of Eddie Tripiplow of Sculpture Services Ltd. We used silicone rubber and fibre glass to produce the green wax replica which then would be cast into bronze.
Bronze naturally goes green over time due to its high copper content but, to speed this process up, we patinate the naked bronze with chemicals and heat. I decided to make a contrast between the two hands by emphasising the green colour of the gloved hand.
The bronze sculpture sits on a corten steel base.
Outcome
HELD was installed in a tranquil oasis at the hospital created by award-winning garden and landscape designer Rae Wilkinson, giving staff at the busy hospital a place to rest and reflect on their experiences of the pandemic.
Ashford and St Peter's Hospital NHS Trust was the first hospital to commission HELD, and it is hoped that other Trusts will also commission a limited edition of the sculpture for their staff.
