Judith Cowan

About Judith Cowan

The domestic vocabulary in Judith Cowan's sculptures encourages daydreams. Here, the vast, apparently falling bucket invites childhood fantasies as you stare into its corten steel metal interior. The weight of a pile of flesh-like, lewissian gneiss stones inside physically stop the fall. A similar debate about permanence or the cusp of time between living and dying is acted out in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In 'The Search for Everlasting Life', Gilgamesh said 'Oh father Utnapishtim, you who have entered the assembly of the gods, I wish to question you concerning the living and the dead, how shall I find the life for which I am searching?' Utnapishtim said, 'There is no permanence. Do we build a house to stand forever, do we seal a contract to hold for all time?...From the days of old there is no permanence.'

Nothing Lasts Forever [1989]
Corten steel, stainless steel and gneiss, 160 x 150 x 110 cms
On loan from the artist

MY FAVOURITE WORK: Maryam Serajiantehrani, PhD Student

I like this work because it was a mystery for me for a while to know what it was and what it was called.  It was also interesting that once when I had about 10 guests for lunch in the college, every single friend of mine who entered the college asked "What's this thing?"!!! I like the way it attracts people's attention to its presence and invites them to know more about it. An interactive work of art!