Ziada
Steel and paint
1.8m height
Edition of 8
Ziada 2020
Pete Moorhouse
This sculpture takes its inspiration from natural forms: tulip heads, unfurling leaves, sense of motion from the wind and sea and also from geometries found in traditional Islamic art which have much in common with western minimalism in terms of geometric seriality, repetition and strong clean lines etc.
Tulip – William Jay Smith 1918-2015
A slender goblet wreathed in flame,
From Istanbul the flower came
And brought its beauty, and its name.
Now as I lift it up, that fire
Sweeps on from dome to golden spire
Until the East is all aflame:
By curving petals held entire
In cup of ceremonial fire,
Magnificence within a frame.
Tulips were originally cultivated in the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey). They were imported into Holland in the sixteenth century from where they made their journey to England. I chose an Arabic name given this origin. The three steel sections incorporating six faces could be seen to represent the fact that tulips typically have three petals and three sepals which look like petals. Coming from the east, the sun rising in the east, to open up the tulip. The tulip rising, growth, aspiration, flourishing, ascension,…Ziada – Arabic – grow/raise