Oh, Beautiful World! (2020)

Eleanor Lakelin is a conceptual wood sculptor who creates artwork made from trees grown in Britain. She is motivated by the possibilities revealed by the organic chaos within the material and the many textures and layers within. The trees Lakelin uses have been felled from decay and the wood enables Lakelin to explore the dynamics of time, growth, life and death.

Her passion for horse chestnut wood led her to engage in a dialogue with the curator at Reading Museum about a commission to commemorate the legendary poet Oscar Wilde. The horse chestnut trees were overlooking Reading Gaol when Wilde was incarcerated in 1895 but were felled in 2020 due to disease. Oh Beautiful World! is a commission to create a work that will serve the community and preserve this history.

In the making process of Oh Beautiful World!, Lakelin manipulated the material to reveal the naturally occurring textures within the grain. This unique element of disruption can be seen in many of her works, and she uses it to guide her outcome. In this case, the partially sanded and smoothed surface represents the beauty of classical vessels, juxtaposed with the exposed burr to reveal the coexistence of beauty, sorrow, health and sickness. Oh, Beautiful World! is an anthropomorphic artwork that confronts the fragility of life, pertinent to Oscar Wilde, but also facilitates discussion and reflection of nature, beauty and time.

In an effort to preserve its legacy, artists and LGBTQ+ public figures like actor Stephen Fry and writer Julian Barnes campaigned to convert Reading Gaol into an Arts & Heritage Centre. Although the prison has since been sold to a developer, Reading Museum intends to place a work in the collection that resonates with the local community and the shared history of the area. Lakelin’s artwork will join a number of Oscar Wilde-related artworks in the Reading Museum collections, and will also form a vital part of an environmental installation. Oh, Beautiful World! commemorates the legacy of Oscar Wilde, but also offers a glimpse into the myriad ways that the community will navigate the end to their isolation after a series of lockdowns.

This image may be shared and re-used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Any further use will need to be cleared directly with the rights holder.

Read our copyright policy for more information.