Harmonic Form, 2018

Bronze

80 x 123 x 44cm

Unique

‘Harmonic Form’ was developed from a series of drawings made during a collaboration  with musicians at the Royal College of Music, London. The aim was to convey, in physical form, the intangible experience of listening to music. For this piece multiple drawings were made while watching a musician perfect a single note on the saxophone.

Harmonic was created in collaboration with architect Stuart Piercy, for the entrance hall of Derwent London’s headquarters on Savile Row.  Visiting the quarry where the travertine marble for the building was being mined, Dalton was struck by the affinities between a stonemason honing marble and a musician refining a single note: both processes of shaping and defining a pre-existing ideal form. Cast into the surface of the sculpture are channels derived from drawings made at the quarry which describe the path of the saw through the marble. This journey from uneven surface to a perfect mirror finish represents the moment when a musician goes beyond the physical reality of performing and into a pure experience.