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Large floating sculpture of a female figure for The Lowry Hotel

’SUSPENSE’ 2001

’SUSPENSE’ 2001
Floating sculpture, dimensions 211 x 83 x 40 cm
The Lowry Hotel, Manchester, UK
Photo Inset / Photograph copyright: Annie Lennox, 2012

The Lowry Hotel, Manchester, UK
Chapel Street, Salford, Manchester

Olga Polizzi (Rocco Forte Hotels UK) commission for a spectacular art wall which spans the first two floors of the Lowry Hotel supplied through “Art International, London”. The 2 metres long floating sculpture is modest in size in relation to the wall but exemplifies the inherent potential of the medium to project shadows as an intrinsic facet occupying a larger space by creating an enlarged composition with strategic lighting.

Photo inset: Annie Lennox exhibited her photography collages including an image taken of David Begbie’s sculpture in the Lowry Hotel.

Artist's statement
SUSPENSE‘ is an extraordinary combination of anxiety and serenity. Ostensibly it is a floating image of a reclining female nude, a timeless contemporary figure fragment sculpted in black steelmesh - “suspended animation” in sculptural terms. Frozen in time and space and further animated by the interplay of shadows created from the work itself, images are projected onto the lobby wall. Evocative of the subconscious or as in a dream, it is a “precarious vision”. A vital tension is created by the ambiguity surrounding the positioning of the sculpture: Seen as a reclining nude, sleeping or floating, the work is seductive and serene. Seen as a falling figure the work is quietly violent.
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A few ‘Begbie’ owners you might know
Giorgio Armani
Michael Barrymore
Eric Clapton
Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear / BBC)
Harvey Goldsmith (promoter)
George Leventis
Emily Maitlis (BBC News Night)
Debbie Moore (Pineapple Dance studios)
Vidal Sassoon (Haircare Ltd.)
Martina Navratilova
Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran)
Sir Clive Sinclair (C5 car)
Frankie Vaughan (late)

Public examples
St. Mary, Wherwell Chilbolton
Millennium Dome, London
Manangel, Birmingham
The Jam House, Edinburgh
Shrine of Walsingham, Norfolk
Wimbledon Centre Court Building
‘Figure & Fountain‘ Southwark, London

Corporate and Private Acquisition Examples
8 Northumberland, London
British Consulate-General Shanghai
British Embassy Khartoum, Sudan
Buddha-Bar London
Cannons City Gym
Christian Dior, Paris
Eric and Jean Cass Collection
Coloplast Ltd., London
Conning Asset Management, London
Christian Dior Couture, Paris
Hanover Grange Jamaica
Heron Corporation
Hyatt Hotel Group
Johnson & Johnson
Jumeirah Hotel Group
Le Royal Meridien Hotel Group
Mein Schiff Cruise Lines
Mews of Mayfair, London
Radisson Edwardian Hotel Group
Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
SAS Radisson Hotel Group

Museums
Natural History Museum, London
International Slavery Museum, Liverpool
Galleria Nazionali de Arte Moderna, Rome
Museum Beelden an Zee, The Netherlands
Court of Justice, Almelo, The Netherlands
National Gallery Canberra, Australia
Nickel Arts Museum, Calgary, USA
My sculptures have no palpable substance or surface. At first glance they appear to be a metallic membrane but when you take a closer look they are not even a skin - they are instead a delineation of surface and form, modelled and drawn in three-dimensional space.
David Begbie
Last updated: 20/03/24