Alison Wilding review – pure sculpture from an artist whose time has come
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
October 2019
Red Skies, which Alison Wilding created in 1992, is a hollow metal column split down its centre to let you peer inside. Within its dark interior floats a brass globe covered in enigmatic bumps and markings, like a magician’s occult signs. Around that hangs a red acrylic sleeve that transfigures the world framed by the narrow opening. Right now, installed in a long white gallery with a glass wall facing Bexhill beach, it frames the blue sea and sky. When you look through it they are set on fire. […]
Wilding is an alchemist whose art is full of romance and mystery and sudden transformations. She is also, her mini-retrospective at the De La Warr Pavilion makes plain, an artist of nature. Her abstract forms may not at first glance appear to have any connection with the natural world. A black fibreglass balloon nestling inside a ring of galvanised steel? Then you see the title: Cuckoo I. The menace begins to make sense. This bulging black cuckoo’s egg promises death. It contains a murderous embryo. Jagged, tooth-like cuts in the metal “nest” add to the sense of impending violence.