Having recently signed to London based sculpture gallery, William Benington Gallery, Julian Wild's forthcoming solo exhibition at Canary Wharf is his most comprehensive survey of work to date.

Stripping the Willow brings together new work and retrospective works (including some loaned from private collections) which focus on a particular branch of his practice: linear sculptures formed of polished bronze and polished and painted stainless steel which explore organic growth through geometric form.

The exhibition includes a new series of bronze and steel sculptures - the largest of their kind that Wild has worked on to date - that appear to have been stripped, split or spliced to reveal their cores. These works, and the title of the exhibition, were inspired by observing the processes of coppicing and stripping willow near his studio in Sussex.

Wild’s sculptures are an investigation into the semiotics of the materials that he uses: from polished and painted stainless steel through to glass and ceramic. He is interested in the indeterminate in relation to three-dimensional form. Recently he made a series of sculptures that act as man-made versions of natural structures such as pernicious weeds. These works also look at the relationship between colour and sculpture, in particular alluding to modernist sculpture of 1960’s. In some of Wild’s work the surface of the material underneath is revealed as he leaves areas of the sculpture un-painted or splits open a coloured sculpture to reveal its shiny metallic core. Alternatively he coats the surface of other sculptures in a beautifully finished spectrum of colour.

He has exhibited at Chatsworth House, Sculpture in the City, Modern Art Oxford, Maddox Arts, William Benington Gallery, V22 and The Saatchi Gallery amongst others.

Julian Wild graduated from Kingston University in 1995, he was awarded The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; Chelsea Arts club Trust Studio Bursary from 2009-2012. The award has given him a purpose built sculpture studio in Chelsea for 3 years. In 2005 he was short-listed for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize and won the Millfield Sculpture Prize in the same year.

He has recently been commissioned to make public sculptures for: Fidelity lnvestments, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Crest Nicholson, Wyeth Europa, Schroders Investment Management, Radley College Oxford, The Jerwood Sculpture Park and Sculpture in the Parklands in Ireland.

His touring project Making the Connection enables members of the public to engage with making a large scale sculpture with low tech materials. http://www.julianwild.com/making-the-connection/

For additional information about the show visit: www.canarywharf.com