Mount’s Bay Stool, 2022
Sub fossilised oak (C14 date 4400 to 4700 before present) | 48 x 38 x 38cm
Oak from a tree that died two and a half thousand years before Christ was born, at a time when the Great Pyramid of Giza and the standing stones of Stonehenge were being constructed. The tree lived in Mounts Bay, Cornwall, UK, when the bay was wooded and far from the sea. It was pickled in peat, buried under sand, and submerged by the rising Atlantic Ocean for four and a half thousand years, until uncovered by a winter storm in 2020.
Following the tradition of placing seats by bodies of water as spaces for contemplation, the sculpture’s form was determined by the volume of workable material.
Mount’s Bay Stool was first exhibited in We Are Floating In Space at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, a stone’s throw from Mount’s Bay and its submerged forest (bottom image).
Thanks to Frank Howie and the Cornwall Geo-conservation Group.