Matrix (2015), Giuseppe Penone. Photo: © Jonty Wilde; courtesy the artist and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Penone was born in the Piedmontese village of Garessio in 1947, and says of his early artistic development, “not having culture, not being knowledgeable about art, the only reality and identity I had was that of the place where I’d been born, with its local reality”. He began to make experimental work using natural materials that were familiar and freely available in the forest around his home in the late 1960s. This non-traditional approach to making art led to him becoming an integral part of the important Italian Arte Povera movement that challenged established value systems in the art world and used materials from everyday life. Important early pieces defined his ongoing enquiry, where he explored the primacy of touch, gesture and an intense affinity with wood, stone, and water: a shared homogeneity with the earth’s material and lifeblood. His works continue to be physical manifestations of lived and breathed experiences, embedded in a deep understanding of the tangible and symbolic properties of the materials he uses and their interconnectedness with his own body. 

Light and Shade (2014), Giuseppe Penone. Photo: © Jonty Wilde; courtesy the artist and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Exploring universal themes including touch, time, growth and memory, Penone demonstrates an intuitive understanding and a mastery of materials from clay, graphite marble and bronze, to accumulations of thousands of laurel leaves and acacia thorns. 

Trees have always held a central position in Penone’s work and he describes them as “not a subject but much more, they are the substance itself of my work”. He draws many correspondences between trees and the human body, often likening bark to skin, and the flow of sap to blood running through our veins. Emphasising their importance, Matrice (2015) occupies the heart of the gallery and is a vital presence pushing through the space like a spine, spanning almost the entire length and uniting all three spaces for the first time. This remarkable sculpture is an entire bisected pine tree, placed horizontally with its narrowest ends facing one another. With a new and altered sense of gravity, branches that once reached for the sky now root the tree to the ground. The body of the tree has been hollowed out and carefully carved to follow one of its growth rings, thereby capturing a particular moment in its life and reflecting Penone’s interest in transience, the flow of time and life cycles.

Ideas of Stone – Elm (2008) Giuseppe Penone. Photo: © Jonty Wilde; courtesy the artist and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

In another space, Propagazione (2018) is a delicate ink drawing made by hand directly onto the wall and spanning over 16 metres. Emanating from the artist’s fingerprint in the centre, the whorls join up to recall a cross section through a tree trunk. This work also speaks of the potential of simplicity: within a single fingerprint lies our identity, our individuality, and this small mark becomes a microcosm of the whole body and the universe beyond. 

Several works in marble illustrate Penone’s fascination with skin, an often-explored idea in his work as the interface between the body and the surrounding environment where a sense of revelation, both physical and spiritual, is paramount. Two works from the Corpo di pietra or ‘body of stone’ series involve the artist following the natural veining of the marble, carving away the surrounding areas so the veins stand out in shallow relief as they do on the skin’s surface. A occhi chiusi (2009) is a triptych made up of a central marble panel flanked by two canvases covered with acacia thorns which create an image of the artist’s closed eyelids.  

Matrice (2015), Giuseppe Penone. Courtesy the artist; © Archivo Penone

Penone’s exploration of eyes and eyelids is extended through the iconic series Rovesciare i propri occhi (1970) in which mirrored contact lenses reflect his surroundings, intimately linking his body and its senses with the environment beyond. Further works, relating to fingertips, touch and gesture, examine the tactile experience of the world around us. 

In the open air, impactful large-scale sculptures are sited to resonate with the more formal areas of the historic landscape, the tallest of which, L’ombra del bronzo (2002) is an imposing 16 metres high. Overlooking the gardens, Albero folgorato (2012), a beautiful bronze cast of a lightning-struck tree, has its exposed interior lined with gold leaf that catches the sunlight. Other sculptures using trees and investigating ideas such as gravity, weight and tension are read in the context of an array of specimen trees and the rolling Yorkshire landscape beyond.