The Sculptor Sophie Dickens has captured the artistic beauty of the perfect Judo throw in an extraordinary life-sized Judo sculpture currently on display at CircleBath, which truly demonstrates the marriage of sport and art. She gave a fascinating talk last week, on the process involved in understanding the dynamics of the sport and creating her sculpture. Her talk was illustrated with a demonstration of the throw by Team Bath Olympic hopeful Jan Gosiewski, British Judo Squad member and European Cup gold medallist, assisted by two young judoka Adam Bolwell and Joda Callan.
Jan had repeated the throw dozens of times for Sophie when she visited Team Bath, at the University of Bath, to sketch and take photographs of the sport before starting work on her sculpture. This allowed her to construct the artwork from shaped pieces of seasoned oak, which really capture the movement in one of the classic winning judo throws ‘Morote Seoinage’ or the two arm shoulder throw.
The project is fund raising to have the life-sized sculpture cast in bronze, with the aim of displaying it both in Bath, prior to the Games and at the ExCel centre, the venue for the judo competition during the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
This dramatically impressive life-sized sculpture is 2m high, it can be viewed in the reception of CircleBath until the end of the month, where visitors are welcome.
A limited edition bronze of the beautiful maquette sized 'Morote Seoinage' sculpture, which is currently exhibited in the British Airways First Class Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5, can be purchased from the online shop at https://www.artattheedge.org/shop/
Profits from the project will be used to benefit disadvantaged or disabled young people through the life changing work of the Youth Sport Trust and ParalympicsGB.
A film of the bronze judo sculpture can be seen at:
