snake, apple, tree

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This scaffold-like structure of metal and wood, vaguely reminiscent of a gallows, draws the viewer’s eye to it, through its unusual combination of materials, enhanced by their varied finishes. We are drawn, in particular, to the disturbance created by the bright red fibreglass bauble. Once the object has our attention, we might perhaps notice the snake skin that coats the metal and then, if we haven’t already done so, might cast a glance at the work’s title. The words of the title: ‘snake, apple, tree’ bring to mind the story of the fall of humankind to earth, common to the three Abrahamic faiths, where a serpent entices Eve to eat an apple, the forbidden fruit. 

Hapaska’s sculptures with their unusual mix materials offer powerful explorations of conflict, faith and the human condition and leave her viewers open to multiple readings. The visual interest she creates in her constructed objects, which often include an element of dark wit and playfulness, encourage an almost visceral experience of the themes she works with, including those of rootlessness, displacement, desire and longing.

Siobhan Hapaska was born in Belfast in 1963 and went on to study at Middlesex Polytechnic and then Goldsmiths College in London. She was the Irish representative at the Venice Biennale in 2008 and recent exhibitions of her work include solo shows at the Kunst Museum, St Gallen, Switzerland (2020); the John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton (2018-19); and Sensory Spaces, at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen 2016), Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Group exhibitions have included shows at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Ireland (2021) and the Williams College Museum of Art, Massachusetts, USA (2019). Hapaska currently lives and works in Rotterdam.

Places

Subjects

apple, tree, snake, Fall of Man, Adam and Eve

Materials & Techniques

plastic, acrylic (paint), aluminium, lacquer, metal, wood, oak wood, mixed media sculpture, artificial snakeskin, fibreglass

Artist

Siobhán Hapaska (1963 - )

Title

snake, apple, tree

Edition

One in an edition of 3

Date

2018

Medium

aluminium, artificial snakeskin, fibreglass, acrylic paint, oak, lacquer

Acquisition

Gift of the artist via the Outset/Government Art Collection Fund, with additional funds provided by the Government Art Collection, May 2019

Provenance

Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, Ireland; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 2019

GAC number

18807