Spencer Byles (France/England)

Conceptual and site-specific artist – Spencer Byles creates his objects exclusively out of materials found in the forest, and during the Street Musicians Festival, he will construct his sculptures in order to improve the look of our Gradić and increase its appeal. The guest appearance of this English sculptor, with permanent residence in France, is the brain child of the partnership between the Festival and the Citizens’ Association Fruškać, which actively strives in conserving the cultural, historic, and natural resources of the Fruška Gora Mountain.

Byles is an English artist who leaves the comfort of the city and heads into the forest, where time after time, in a mysterious fashion, highlights the relations between the natural and cultural, by creating objects made from materials found in the forest at locations special to him. He sees deep, uninhabited virgin forests as the place where a man opens all five senses, which is consistently overlooked by the unaware concrete and glass lovers. Within these woodlands, he leaves his sculptures of twigs, leaves, bark, earth, flowers, and other natural materials, as nameless, but deeply suggestive objects which force the viewer to question his views on culture, politics, the world, his surroundings, ecology and art.

Last year, Spencer moved with his family to a small village on the wooded hillside in the La Colle Sur Loup region in France, where, at twenty different locations each one with its own special meaning, created completely different objects, without any previous planning, relying only on intuition and vibrations of that particular space. A similar experience awaits the visitors of the Suburbium during the Street Musicians Festival, from 1st to 3rd September.