Union (Horse with two Discs)

2000. Bronze. Edition of 3. 195x89x158in (496x225x158cm).
Studio view of the working maquette in wax, plaster and steel, also views of casts installed at The New Art Centre Sculpture park and Gallery, Roche Court, Wiltshire and at the entrance to the Museum of London.

Since 1995 Christopher Le Brun has gained an increasing reputation as a sculptor. Union is his most monumental bronze to date, closely corresponding in scale to his largest paintings. The three-dimensional potential of his imagery on a large scale has been apparent since earlier related paintings, such as Reef 1983, Union 1984 and Ocean Lock 1986. Union can be interpreted in many different ways. The discs, flanking the clear figurative image of the horse, convey broad mythological and classical significance. The enigmatic composition with its dramatic tension between the flat forms of the discs and the spatial and drawn aspects of the central image is characteristic of Le Brun paintings. One of Le Brun’s first inspirations was Paul Nash, whose 1944 Landscape of the Vernal Equinox shows the sun and moon appearing simultaneously above a landscape that is both in shadow and sunlight. Texture, handling and touch play an important role in Le Brun’s work. The surfaces of his paintings are often heavily manipulated, scraped and over-laid. This feeling is present in the sculpture with its visible modelling and its painterly patina.