Brighton Flint Grotto: Difference between revisions
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Asked about his relationship with the council, McCormack said, "There was one occasion where one of the beach inspectors ...said, "I’m sorry, this has all got to come down", but that was two years after I started and by that time I'd spent two years in the middle of the beach on top of a ladder...sometimes 12, 15 foot off the ground, with the beach inspectors and whatever coming past me with no-one saying a dicky-bird. Then when I finished all the larger figures then they come along and say, "Ah, you shouldn’t have done that". So then I dug my heels in and carried on. That was more than three years ago and I haven't heard anything since."<ref name="keepers" /> |
Asked about his relationship with the council, McCormack said, "There was one occasion where one of the beach inspectors ...said, "I’m sorry, this has all got to come down", but that was two years after I started and by that time I'd spent two years in the middle of the beach on top of a ladder...sometimes 12, 15 foot off the ground, with the beach inspectors and whatever coming past me with no-one saying a dicky-bird. Then when I finished all the larger figures then they come along and say, "Ah, you shouldn’t have done that". So then I dug my heels in and carried on. That was more than three years ago and I haven't heard anything since."<ref name="keepers" /> |
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In 2020, McCormack told David Clegg that the Flint Grotto was finished: "I ran out of space and I was still on a roll...and to my mind I finished it by putting these tiny figures more mischievous and random...sort of frolicking over the tops of the other ones."<ref name="keepers" /> |
In 2020, McCormack told David Clegg that the Flint Grotto was finished: "I ran out of space and I was still on a roll...and to my mind I finished it by putting these tiny figures more mischievous and random...sort of frolicking over the tops of the other ones."<ref name="keepers" /> |
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Since 2020, McCormack has continued making statues on his allotment by the race hill, documented by the Keeper's Project<ref>[https://www.thekeepersproject.com/flint-sculptures-brighton-allotment-rory-mccormack Flint Sculptures, Brighton, East Sussex, The Keeper's Project]</ref> and in the summer 2023 edition of [[Raw Vision]] magazine<ref>[https://rawvision.com/blogs/articles/rory-mccormack 'Rory McCormack', Raw Vision, Summer 2023]</ref>. His allotment statues are of [[Taweret|Tawaret]]the Egyptian hippopotamus goddess, the Egyptian god [[Bes]] with a vulture on his head, a [[minotaur]], a seated Mexican god with a brazier on his head (used as a bird table) and a figure of [[Priapus]], the Greek and Roman guardian of orchards and gardens. |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 12:42, 19 September 2023
The Flint Grotto is a sculpture garden, created on Brighton beach between 2013-2020, by Rory McCormack, a local fisherman. McCormack is a self-taught artist, though he has trained and worked as a dry stone waller.[1]
The sculpture garden, which McCormack created quietly and without council permission, was first documented in 2015, in Hank Van Es' Outsider Environments Europe blog.[2]. It was first named The Flint Grotto in David Bramwell[3] and Tim Bick's Cheeky Guide to Brighton in 2016.[4]
The Flint Grotto is usually described as "outsider art".[5][4], and it was featured in the Spring 2017 edition of Raw Vision, the British journal dedicated to the form.[6]The art historian Alexandra Loske describes the statues as "sturdy figures rightly likened to outsider art or Arte Povera. They are raw, unconventional and strangely moving, standing silently battered by wind, sun and water..." [7] In an interview for The Keeper's Project, McCormack told the artist David Clegg, "Outsider artist isn’t a bad term, it’s just not the best one. There should be something that fits the bill a bit better - a restless person, with itchy fingers who couldn’t help but keep going."[1]
McCormack built the grotto on one of the small plots of land on the beach, allocated by Brighton Council for fishermen to keep their boats, nets and equipment.[7] Over time, most plots were abandoned, until McCormack was the last fisherman in Brighton to keep his boat on the beach. To protect his equipment from vandals, he surrounded the plot with a seven foot high fence. Hank Van Es suggests that "It is not difficult to understand that McCormack gradually came to regard this secluded part of the public beach as his own little world."[2]
McCormack began by creating a garden on his plot.[1] His first structure was a workbench to chop his catches on, made from beach flints and decorated with shells. He followed this with a decorated arch and a series of statues, outsized blow-ups of existing small ancient figurines.[1] These include the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf, the Neolithic 'Thinker' of Cernavoda in Romania,the bronze Dancing Girl from Mohenjo Daro, four marble Cycladic figurines, including a harp player and an aulos player, a Syro-Hittite mother and child, and a bronze statuette of a Spartan commander from the Wadsworth Atheneum museum.
Recreating the ancient figurines in various materials has allowed McCormack to add colour, missing in the originals. So he has used red brick to create the Spartan's scarlet cloak and helmet crest, the Venus of Willendorf's hair and the Dancing Girl's hair and arm bangles. White shell was used for eyes. He has given a spear and a shield to the Spartan.
McCormack also made statues of animals and birds, including a gorilla, an orang-utan, and a herring gull wearing a pschent, the double crown of Ancient Egypt (based on statuettes of Horus the sky god as a hawk wearing the crown).
McCormack's fishing boat, which can be seen on the eastern edge of the grotto, is also a work of art, decorated with paintings copied from Greek vases. These include a Gorgon, Geometric chariots and the sacrifice of the Trojan priestess Polyxena by Diomedes.[8] There are photos of the boat on the Keepers Project website.
In 2015, there were reports in the local news that Brighton Council wanted the statues demolished for health and safety reasons. A spokesman said, "We have real concerns over these structures because some are more than six foot high and have been built on council land without consent so we have to take action before somebody is seriously injured."[9]
Asked about his relationship with the council, McCormack said, "There was one occasion where one of the beach inspectors ...said, "I’m sorry, this has all got to come down", but that was two years after I started and by that time I'd spent two years in the middle of the beach on top of a ladder...sometimes 12, 15 foot off the ground, with the beach inspectors and whatever coming past me with no-one saying a dicky-bird. Then when I finished all the larger figures then they come along and say, "Ah, you shouldn’t have done that". So then I dug my heels in and carried on. That was more than three years ago and I haven't heard anything since."[1]
In 2020, McCormack told David Clegg that the Flint Grotto was finished: "I ran out of space and I was still on a roll...and to my mind I finished it by putting these tiny figures more mischievous and random...sort of frolicking over the tops of the other ones."[1]
Since 2020, McCormack has continued making statues on his allotment by the race hill, documented by the Keeper's Project[10] and in the summer 2023 edition of Raw Vision magazine[11]. His allotment statues are of Tawaretthe Egyptian hippopotamus goddess, the Egyptian god Bes with a vulture on his head, a minotaur, a seated Mexican god with a brazier on his head (used as a bird table) and a figure of Priapus, the Greek and Roman guardian of orchards and gardens.
References
- ^ a b c d e f 'Rory’s McCormack’s Flint Grotto on Brighton beach', transcript of interview with David Clegg for the Keepers Project
- ^ a b 'Rory McCormack, Beach flint sculpture garden', Outsider Environments Europe blog, 5 November 2015
- ^ Miller, Norman (17 March 2020). "How Brighton became an epicentre of freedom". BBC Online. BBC. Retrieved 16 September 2023.
- ^ a b David Bramwell and Tim Bick, The Cheeky Guide to Brighton, Cheeky Guides Ltd, 2016, p.33
- ^ Ellie Seymour, Secret Brighton: An Unusual Guide, Jonglez Publishing, 2018, p.37
- ^ 'Rory McCormack, Flint Grotto', Raw Vision 93, Spring 2017.
- ^ a b Alexandra Loske, 111 Places in Brighton and Lewes that You Shouldn't Miss, Emons, 2018, p.74
- ^ British Museum listing for the amphora showing the sacrifice of Polyxena
- ^ quoted by Jo Wadsworth, 'Brighton fisherman’s beach grotto under threat of demolition', Brighton and Hove News, 5 October 2015
- ^ Flint Sculptures, Brighton, East Sussex, The Keeper's Project
- ^ 'Rory McCormack', Raw Vision, Summer 2023