Jon Buck's latest sculptures play on the forms of two ancient objects: bells and boats - warning tocsins and rescue vessels.
'Ringing the Changes', in the form of an ancient bell, both celebrates the beauty of biodiversity and comes with a caution for our planet - transcribed through Jon Buck's universal language of glyphs.
The red and brown patina colours and textures the surface of the bell, which is further marked with crowded raised patterns of glyphs. Most of these represent animals, waves or even digital icons - an image of all life living together on an 'entangled bank'. This biodiverse scene symbolises a pressing threat to our planet: species extinctions, ecosystem collapse, habitat loss, and climate crisis.
'What do we feel about ourselves as human beings, about our relationship to each other, to other creatures and to the wider environment in general? Science has tried to put us back as part of nature as we rapidly become more isolated from it, can art express this irony?' Jon Buck

Throughout his career Jon Buck has interpreted the world around us, drawing his inspiration from poetry, science and anthropology. Buck’s experience working as Keeper of Birds at Bristol Zoo in his youth was an important creative inspiration, and he began to investigate the ways in which sculpture could stimulate a deeper primal response.
Whilst colour is not traditionally associated with sculpture, Buck has also spent much of his career experimenting and exploring its impact and ability to enhance bronze sculpture.

Jon Buck studied at Nottingham and Manchester Art Schools. He has completed many public commissions including ‘Returning to Embrace’ for Canary Wharf in London and ‘Ship to Shore’ for Portishead Quays. His work is regularly exhibited both in the UK and abroad and is held in numerous public and private collections.