The Elephant Bed
John Grade
The Elephant Bed is the name of a chalk and shale layer that underpins much of Brighton, first identified by eminent Sussex geologist Gideon Mantell in 1834 and described as “an obscurely stratified mass, formed chiefly of chalk detritus, with a large intermixture of ochreous clay, and containing remains of the elephant, horse, buffalo, and deer”. Unlike the white cliffs that surround it, the elephant bed is recent in geological terms, its formation occurring towards the end of the last Ice Age, 200 thousand years ago.
About The Artist
Landscape is at the heart of John Grade’s work. Grade walks as a traveller, crossing vast and often extreme environments. Some are full of meaning like the Killing Fields in Cambodia, others defy human life such as the Jordanian desert or the Cascade Mountains on the US/ Canada border. When he returns to the studio he produces meticulously crafted work that combine a wide range of materials remindful of those places: wood pulps, goat fur, resins, home made ice, hot pepper sauce. Once constructed the pieces are then put back outside, into a harsh landscape, buried or left to decay, dissolve or be eaten, as nature intended. Always in transition and open to chance Grades sculptures are rarely finished. Occasionally dragging them back indoors to be exhibited or reworked, then returned again to the landscape as a possible final resting point. What we see in the gallery is just one part of a long journey of transformation.
Grade’s drawings, prints and sculptures have been shown extensively in galleries, museums and at precise outdoor locations across the USA. Most recent solo exhibitions include Bellevue Arts Museum, Boise Art Museum and the Suyama Space and Davidson Galleries in Seattle. In 2004 he was joined by his extended family in a residency in the Western boglands of County Mayo in Ireland. In 2007 he was resident artist at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The Elephant Bed was his first exhibition in Britain.
