Artist : Simon Hitchens
Title : Casting a Shadow Over The Cambrian
Medium : carbon, wax, crystacal (edition of 3)
Dimensions : 17 x 10.5 x 42.5 cm


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Casting a Shadow Over The Cambrian is an uncanny object which references time: geological time, celestial time and human time by reflecting a specific moment. It is the shadow of a paleozoic piece of rock, precisely at midday, when the sun is at its zenith. That brief moment in time has now passed, but is immortalised forever as a solid object, quite the opposite to the ephemerality of its origin. Simon Hitchens' work explores the interconnectedness between the human and the non-human, as a means of learning about Mankind’s relationship with impermanence. The material backbone of his work is rock in its raw and natural state. This is not carved and polished but plucked from the rock face or quarry floor. He remains acutely aware of the historical significance that stone has as the prime material to make sculpture, and as a sculptor is challenged to make art that contributes to this debate. As a climber he maintains an intimate relationship with rock, and is acutely aware that geologically it is the very material that supports us upon the planet. In the age of the Anthropogenic it seems pertinent to question how we comprehend the geological and human worlds as united, interconnected even.

Hitchens believes there is increasingly a disconnect between these two worlds which is harmful not only to the planet but also our psyche. Consequently, rock is the conceptual focus of his work and typically the material backbone within it. His work questions differences between animate and inanimate, more specifically rock and flesh, mountain and body; exploring themes of transience and transcendence.