IMG 7023-001-Icarus Palm

Cass Sculpture Foundation, Goodwood, West Sussex.

Icarus Palm is constructed from two tonnes of rubber tyres that have been torn and manipulated apart to form the figurative representation of a palm tree. The title Icarus Palm leads us directly back to the allegorical Greek myth of Icarus, the flying apprentice. The effect of the ripped up and gnarled tyres are incredibly evocative and from a distance appear dead, like a burnt-out carcass. There is a melancholic, post-apocalyptic sensibility to this work due to its equally familiar and unfamiliar appearance. Douglas White's use of rubber, enhances this idea, due to its associative symbolism with violent colonial expansion. Icarus Palm is suggestive of death and destruction and with climate change such a prescient issue, White's message appears seemingly pessimistic.