ÜGLY
Spare vertical — concrete base with white pebbles, serpentine forged metal rod, worked wood block at top. — view 1

Untitled

Carving this block of found wood, Robert Bibeau uncovered an axe head the living tree had swallowed: the blade had gone in, and the fibres closed over it year after year. That find decided the rest. The form reads as a bull, raised above a metre and a half on a forged metal rod snaking up from a concrete base; two uneven stubs stand for horns, one torn away, one snapped. The rod keeps some give: a push of the hand sets the beast swaying before it settles back to plumb. The cuts stay raw. A beast that took the blow and still holds.

Spare vertical — concrete base with white pebbles, serpentine forged metal rod, worked wood block at top. — view 2
Spare vertical — concrete base with white pebbles, serpentine forged metal rod, worked wood block at top. — view 3
Spare vertical — concrete base with white pebbles, serpentine forged metal rod, worked wood block at top. — view 4
Spare vertical — concrete base with white pebbles, serpentine forged metal rod, worked wood block at top. — view 5
Studio view, white background.
Video
Reading notes

No one drove this axe in: the wood had swallowed it, and the carving made it visible. The wounded bovine joins art's enduring beasts, from Picasso's bull to votive figures. One question stays open: does this last survivor stand by its own force, or because it was set there.