Appropriation, revisiting, rethinking, reworking – all are brought to bear in Charles Hadcock’s approach to making sculpture. Of course there is much more that happens on the journey between a concept and the completion of a sculpture. Through the items in this new exhibition for Canary Wharf’s Jubilee Park he raises these questions:

Is anything ever complete?

Is everything in continuum?

Appropriation for Hadcock began when he was a student, collecting everyday things that might spark an idea for a sculpture, or if transformed might become the sculpture through being cast into another material – aluminium, bronze or cast iron. Hadcock’s choice has continued to be made somewhere near the beginning a new work, right from the early days when he made multiple casts of polystyrene packaging and brought them together in compositions that for him recalled something else: a painting of an old master perhaps or possibly a remembered detail of architecture. Now he is more likely to appropriate the hidden core of a generator or some other piece of historic but highly engineered equipment as well as geometric forms. In using these as sources in his sculptures and as inspiration for methods of construction and casting, Hadcock blends them with the skill of the poet, composer and musician, borrowing from both a sense of meter.

Revisiting sculptures that he made as long as ten years ago, and with the focus of gained experience, considering how they might be changed is a particular trait in Hadcock’s methodology. New versions grow from older pieces through changes of scale as he adds more repeated modular sections to some sculptures, or simply by altering the orientation of a work, turning it upside-down or leaning it differently, supporting it on a plinth, perhaps introducing stone in combination with iron or bronze, the materials from which most of his sculptures are cast.

Rethinking and reworking are just part of the processes he employs to kick-start new ideas and new sources of inspiration, which are invariably close to other activities in his life. He runs a paper-mill in Lancashire where he has just installed a hydro turbine in order to generate electricity. These factors, combined with his passion for engineering, mathematics, music and poetry all inform his sculpture. Engineering lies deep in Hadcock’s family background.

His great-grandfather Sir George Hadcock (1861–1936) designed naval guns, notably inventing the breech-loading spiral for those exhibited outside the Imperial War Museum in London.

His grandfather and father were also professional engineers working in different specialist areas. Although as an artist Hadcock had no formal training in engineering – unlike the eminent sculptor, Sir Anthony Caro om – his practical engineering skills were learned instead from his forebears.

It is his close understanding of and passion for engineering that makes Hadcock’s sculptures so particular. In recognising the beauty and possibilities for sculptures in both ready-made and engineered objects he finds sources for sculptural ideas. He also knows how to make forms that work well on any scale, and to make his sculptures economically. He is proud of the hand-made and of the industrial finishes that endow his work with openness and honesty that is rare in today’s culture of quick fixes and hidden agendas.

While valuing his early works as they are, they raise issues for the sculptor when reworking those pieces, literally or in concept. If an edition has been declared on a work made some time before, then the sculptor must allow for the sculpture to be made up to that number. In its new or changed form, the sculpture becomes a different item, however, with its own edition numbering should the artist choose for it not to be unique. The reworking of a unique piece by the artist becomes a new work in its own right, as the earlier form no longer exists. It is important for the artist to have utter clarity regarding the status of his work, as collectors need to know.

Charles Hadcock has been involved in a series of sculptures under the general title of Caesura since made the first in 1994. All are concerned with the meaning of the word caesura – a break or pause near the middle of a line, or break between words within a metrical foot, especially in Greek and Latin poetry.

The Caesura series also bear attributes of architecture, mathematical constructions, rock textures, and engineering principles. Caesura V (version 2) 1996–2009 has been entirely reconfigured by Hadcock using all the elements of the original sculpture, which was initially shown in two sections and positioned horizontally on the floor as a gently rising form. Through standing its two sections on edge and holding them together by four bolts Hadcock changed its presence radically as it now shows a kinship to architecture – note the doorway – and exhibits dynamic movement through its sloping stance. This is now a new work, a version of Caesura V of 1996.

Hadcock’s latest sculpture in the Caesura series is Caesura VIII (Triangles 3) 2011, completed just in time for his exhibition in Jubilee Park. Over time he has developed the forms in these sculptures to create a greater complexity in shape and three-dimensionality. Caesura VIII picks up on some characteristics found in Caesura V; movement spiralling through the sculpture, a centrifugal force gained through opening up the piece to show its inner workings. There are also similarities in the geometry and of course in the repetition of like elements.

Vessel (version 2, large) 2006 was made after Hadcock had been in the workshop of a patternmaker. On the floor he saw a number of patterns used in making hydro turbines, one of which reminded him of the form of a shell. He took the pattern back to his studio and it became the basis for this sculpture in which the apparently weathered rock-like surface of the outer skin contrasts with its highly finished interior. In its first incarnation, the sculpture stood upright, but it is now recumbent, resting gently on a granite dockside kerbstone.

Geology is yet another interest of Charles Hadcock. He likes to claim eroded cliff-faces and fossils – or the idea of fossil forms – in his work, especially if at one remove. By that I mean that he is as likely to take a cast from a textured concrete-paver as he is from one made from York stone. In Paleaozoic Still Life 2006 he has taken the similarity between small marine pods of the Paleaozoic period (some 542 to 251 million years ago) and a water-pump encased in stone split to reveal its fossil-inspired interior as the basis of his sculpture. Exchange between the natural and man-made worlds is clearly visible in this composite piece.

The form of a small turbine is the ‘fossil’ in Transformation 2007, which stands in its original alignment, the form of the ‘fossil’ a piece of synthetic nature, revealed as if a geologist had sliced through a piece of quarried stone. The excitement of geological discoveries revealing elements unseen for millennia provides a romantic notion for the sculpture as well as the impression that this might be an artefact discovered by a future generation.

In Helisphere 2009 Hadcock has combined the characteristics of the helix (a curve in three-dimensional space) with the sphere. The sphere is made in horizontal sections, which spin out of alignment with its skin causing a curved and stepped distortion that is the helix curve. Walking around the sculpture provides the viewer with a multiplicity of gently changing shapes.

Torsion II 2009 is another sculpture that Hadcock has reworked. Already a tall and spiralling form, described in an essay by Andrew Lambirth in 20091 as being like ‘the beginning of a stairway to the stars’, Hadcock has added further sections to make it reach a little further into the heavens.

In a semi-spherical arrangement of like forms together with the helix curve stepping out of the circular order, Hadcock has created a complex arrangement twisting on an axle. Verticil (version 2) 2009–10, now supported by a granite stone, once lay at an angle to the ground. Being viewed differently, the dynamics within the composition of the sculpture appears to have been altered. Leaning slightly off vertical, the sculpture seems to have a greater dynamic as though it may spiral out of control, moving up and away from its original position safely curling into the ground.

Of two new sculptures made especially for the exhibition, Dupin Cyclide 2011 demonstrates Hadcock’s deep interest in mathematics. The form is that of the inverted torus, but the shape is cut to reveal the interior, which contrasts in finish with the exterior of the sculpture. The cut – a favourite device of Hadcock’s – gives the option of seeing the work as conjoined musical horns.

The engineered form Hadcock developed from the experience gained from making both Torsion and Verticil is readily apparent in Five-Section Spiral 2011. However, here the rotational movement is forwards rather than upwards. Grounded, this sculpture perhaps is witness to Hadcock glancing back across the years to his great-grandfather’s breech-loading spiral.

Ann Elliott

February 2011