In the gardens of The Hepworth Wakefield
the artist James Pyman has wrapped an early 19th-century watermill in a life-size
drawing of the mill. Pyman’s meticulous illustrations detailing
the features of the façade of the mill have been reproduced at life-size scale
and printed on to a building wrap that shrouds the actual building.
It is not yet clear whether within its
wrapper the mill is decaying further or whether it will be unwrapped in new
glory, but either way the drawings preserve
for the moment both the history and status or the industrial mill. Furthermore, the graphite marks rendered as brick and
mortar stand in contrast to the polished concrete of The Hepworth; the hand-drawn holding its own in the shadow of the new museum. Pyman’s drawings capture the watermill between its splendour and ruin.
James Pyman
Upper Mill, 2011
images courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London