Mostly Empty Space
I produced, directed and edited this short documentary about the artist David Begbie.
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David Begbie is the master of steel mesh and his sculpture speaks for itself.
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The mesh is transparent — 90% thin air – and yet it has a much greater physical presence than any conventional solid form. Begbie’s skill, perception, understanding and imagination are succinctly and economically contained within the confines of the simple shell that constitutes his sculpture. Look again closely and you see that there is not even a skin, only a graphic delineation of one. In relation to the space it occupies, the catalytic effect a Begbie sculpture has, in any setting, given that it has no palpable substance or surface, is phenomenal. The introduction of strategic lighting as an integral part of a particular composition has the most remarkable result where the combination of two and three dimensions, with the use of projected shadows, produces an optical fusion of image and object. It is from this phenomenon that Begbie developed his flat steel panel sculptures, the first of which he named “Shadow Series” and which are available in fine art limited editions. Begbie envisaged these works as existing and occupying a space between the three dimensional sculpture and the shadow itself, and in the process has created another new art form.
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Produced and directed by Jonathan Cronin
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Music by Heathcliff Blair
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Filmed at David Begbie Studio and Buddha-Bar, London
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