Keef 2024,
hand blown glass, bronze, 35 x 34 x 34 cm
In 'The Heads of Snowmen', Sylvester presents a
series of multi coloured, hand-blown glass heads,
embellished with cast bronze features, including
carrot noses, button eyes and a cheeky smoke.
Severed and decapitated from their glossy bodies,
Sylvester’s snowmen heads appear frozen-in-time,
underscoring the artists ongoing interest in how
death is presented in pop culture.
At once a beacon of seasonal festivity, the severed
snowman head is both repellent and captivating,
both redolent of atavism and caught up in the story of
what is natural and inevitable; it is created, it melts, it
dies. In short, the essence of what it means
to be human.
Drawn from a readymade palette based on the late
American abstract artist Ellworth Kelly’s
‘Spectrum IX’ 2014, the suite of snowman heads are
rendered in an opulent shimmering finish, ranging
from solid blues and misty greens to bold yellows
and reds, reminiscent of earlier ‘palettes’ the artist
has utilized by fashion houses such as Balenciaga
and Yves Saint Laurent.
Seen as an installation of 20 singular works in situ,
The Heads of Snowmen evokes the evergreen
playfulness of sculpted snowman from life, or as
seen in cinema, ominously underpinned by the
violence of a head without its body. This very
action between recognizable figure and distorted
snow is held in time, a grotesque, saccharine
deformed glowing orb with crude features and
a blank expression. A reminder about how short
and precious time is.
Bobbie 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 30 x 29 x 29 cm
Buttons 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 46 x 20 x 20 cm
Captain 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 29 x 19 x 23 cm
Carrot 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 44 x 23 x 29 cm
Crispin 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 41 x 23 x 23 cm
Desmond 2024,
hand blown glass, bronze, 38 x 35 x 35 cm
Snowy 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 32 x 30 x 35 cm
Ernie 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 20 x 22 x 22 cm
Fizzy 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 31 x 32 x 34 cm
Frosty 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 22 x 18 x 20 cm
Lolly 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 36 x 28 x 28 cm
Pierre 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 47 x 22 x 24 cm
Slimey 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 25 x 22 x 22 cm
Polar 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 41 x 18 x 17 cm
Panda 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 36 x 24 x 24 cm
Pom Pom 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 29 x 29 x 30 cm
Popeye 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 36 x 34 x 42 cm
Puffy 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 25 x 38 x 43 cm
Pumpkin 2024
hand blown glass, bronze, 28 x 28 x 29 cm