Watch-dog

The piece is worked from an entire stump, seventy-two centimetres. The lower part keeps bark and root, a base left close to its found state; the upper part is carved until a seated beast emerges, gathered on its supports, muzzle raised and pierced with two nostrils. The reading hovers between dog and bear; the title settles it toward guarding. A natural fissure runs down the muzzle and divides the figure into two slopes: on one side the smoothed, waxed, honey-toned wood; on the other the dark roughness of the preserved bark. The stump stays legible beneath the form given to it.

Watch-dog: stump standing directly on a tiled floor, seen at a three-quarter angle, rounded top split by a vertical crack, rough bark below and sanded glossy wood above.

Watch-dog: the stump standing upright, dark bark on the lower half and polished honey-toned wood above, a small protrusion on each side and a vertical crack below the top.

Watch-dog, a human face carved into wood, front view

Close view of the carved wooden face, almond eyes half shut, a jutting nose pierced by two nostril holes, a narrow slot of mouth cut through dark bark, one pale squared ear at left and a darker one at right, tiled floor blurred behind

Three-quarter view in full sunlight, the stump standing on two carved legs, head tipped back to the left, a bark ear jutting out, pale sapwood flank beside the brown bark left in place, framed paintings leaning against a white wall behind

Full view inside a gallery, the piece set on the floor before a wall hung with framed works, its shadow falling left across the tiles, thick bark kept on the right leg and a carved gap running between the two legs

Closer view in the gallery, taken from the right, light on the top of the head and the face turned upward, the bark ear standing out, a wide plate of brown bark covering the leg, framed paintings on the wall behind

The piece standing on a concrete sidewalk in front of a purple wall covered in graffiti, a step and a young tree trunk to one side, head tipped back, grey bark kept along the leg

Reading notes

Threshold figures run through sculpture, from the paired Assyrian lions to the Celtic heads planted at village entrances. The paradox of the title does the rest: watch-dog, an almost trivial phrase, for an old tutelary register. A domestic name, a guardian presence.