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More than 100 pieces by different artists are exhibited by Hannah Peschar every year and are on offered for sale: The pieces are in every imaginable shape and from various materials like wood, metal, marble, glass, wire and plastic. Hannah is very good in finding the perfect spot for a sculpture. Coloured ceramic balls are enthroned on moss overgrown stones, a well shaped woman?s body made from steel lies in the middle of hip high grass beneath a large tree, and breakable plastic sticks seem to float above a pond filled with sea roses: Art meets nature everywhere around you.

?Come into the garden and forget all knowledge'.

Many years ago I was a foreign correspondent reporting on Dutch radio station about the incomprehensible nature of British politics. The editors of the programme were a serious bunch and I got fired.

I then happened to share a substantial garden with my landscape designer Anthony Paul,  lover of architectural landscapes full of plants with hairy leaves, thorny stems and sweeping ground covering mosses, replacing  grass that simply gave up to grow in the shade.  He was a non advocator of all things pretty and sentimental. I found my mate and started the first commercial sculpture garden in the UK.

Thus I asked some assistance from heads of Sculpture departments of the major art colleges and professor Philip King opened my first exhibition of contemporary sculpture. He was rather sceptical about the whole thing.

Garden sculpture-or to be more accurate, sculpture in the garden-has a glorious past in Europe, that stretches back nearly 2000 years. Sculpture has always played a prominent part in both formal and informal landscape designs, from the statuary that was an integral part of the grounds at Hadrian?s villa outside Rome, to the glories of the formal landscapes of Renaissance Italy and France, and not to forget the pre meditated contours of the 18th century landscapes of England.   Unfortunately from the end of the 19th Century till around 1980, few landscape designers bothered to include contemporary sculpture in their designs. At the famous Chelsea Flowers shows for instance, little sculpture that was shown for decades even representing the then still traditional English love for sentimentality in the shape of cherubs, dogs, gnomes and little girls in ballerina outfits.  The two grand exceptions however were Henri Moore and Barbara Hepworth, who gladly left all this Englishness behind for breaking such new ground; it took the Royal Academy in London years to acknowledge their sculpture before they were accepted to become a member.

My first attempt to interest British sculptors in showing their work in my garden was met with considerable scepticism, being used to museum and gallery space where light is static all day long during opening times. Considering this new challenge most of the artists preferred their work in the middle of the o-s-sacred English lawn. Forgetting things get often wet in this country, where it can sometimes snow (if we are lucky) or where the occasional sun creates long shadows by the end of the day. It just makes three dimensional art look more intriguing than in a museum. I still walk through my garden in be wonderment even when a thick fog has descended on it.  The changing light adds glamour to the sculpture, a kind of spookiness not for the faint hearted.  Among the exhibits are several sculptures by Rob Ward, current head of the British Sculpture Network's branch, but also work by Peter Randall-Page, Paul Vanstone,  Beate Schroedle, Thiebaut Chague and Almuth Tebbenhof.

The making of a  'sound sculpture' has recently been added to the collection, financially supported by the British Arts Council. It is a much loved sound installation by the composer of new music, Robert Jarvis,  a much talked about and award winning sound artist.  Jarvis'  creation 'Grow'  has been inspired by the composition of the DNA of  2 trees surrounding a secret pond in the garden, some bamboos bushes and a very sculptural Gunnera manicata.

The main element in the sculpture garden is the interaction between art and nature.  The more significant the art the more mystical the surrounding.

'Come into the garden and forget all knowledge'.

Hannah Peschar

Exhibited in Ockley are sculptures by Peter Randall-Page, Paul Vanstone, Beate Schroedle, Thiebaut Chague, Almuth Tebbenhof and Rob Ward the British correspondent for sculpture network. There is also a sculpture by Robert Jarvis a renomated contemporary composer. The project was subsidised by the British Art Council. ?Grow? is inspired by the DNA-Structure of two trees which are surrounding a hidden pond in Hannah Peschars garden as well as several Bamboos and a very plastic Gunnera manicata.

If you haven?t got the time to visit the sculpture garden in Surrey yourself the internet site gives a very good idea of the park: accompanied by birdsongs the virtual park-visitor wanders through a green paradise.

Hannah Peschar

The Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden, Black & White Cottage, Ockley / Surrey  RH5 5QR

T: + 00 44 (0) 1306 627269
info@hannahpescharsculpture.com
www.hannahpescharsculpture.com