Designer Profile
by KIM COOK
for Casual Living
David Harber greets you with a big warm handshake that sends his headful of white curls dancing; a mischievous smile and twinkling eyes tell you this is an artist for whom pretention or artifice are not in the vocabulary.
Which isn’t to say he doesn’t ever travel in swank circles — his arresting sculptures, made of bronze and steel and brass — grace the courtyards and lawns of palaces in Bahrain, 5-star hotels in France, colleges in Cambridge and Oxford, and a plethora of private homes.
But they’re also on display on public housing and senior center properties, hospital grounds and even George Harrison’s Tribute Garden in Chelsea.
What makes his artwork so universally compelling? He turns metal into vessels that harness the elements of light, fire and water.
One piece, The Mantle, is made of hundreds of bronze petals, each one gilded on the inside, then all of them welded into a sphere.
“It’s inspired by the concept that we live on this wafer-thin habitable crust of planet Earth,” Harber says. “The iridescent warm glow of the gold symbolizes the energy of this extraordinary planet.”
Another interstellar piece called Dark Planet is made of dozens of smooth basalt pebbles affixed in perfect rows. “It’s an almost menacing mass, rugged and simple, but it exudes a resolute energy,” he says.
His workshop sits in the rolling English countryside of Oxfordshire — in the shadow, perhaps unsurprisingly, of a Bronze Age hill fort. But he’s also got a new rooftop garden space adjoining the Christopher Peacock Showroom in New York’s D&D Building (more on that later), and a by-appointment garden showcase in London’s Eaton Square.
Harber tried his hand at thatching, ceramics and mountaineering before settling on sculpture. Inspired by the night sky and keenly interested in astronomy, he started with armillary sundials, those iconic early measurement spheres. (Interesting side note: A few years ago, Harber discovered that he was a direct descendant of John Blagrave, a noted Elizabethan-era mathematician and scientific instrument maker. Not only that, Blagrave spent most of his life living just 20 miles from where Harber’s workshop is in Oxfordshire.)
“The armillary sundial was my first love, in terms of creating a physical sculpture. It was my first attempt at producing a piece of metalwork which I was fortunate enough to sell, and so the story began. As such, the sphere has a very strong place in my heart. I was drawn to the elegance of the piece, and the marriage of art and science.” He sold that first one to actor Jeremy Irons, and over the years has made them in every size, for tiny cottage gardens to massive hotels and commercial projects, in steel, brass and bronze.
“They have a universal appeal, and I take great pleasure in watching the interaction between the observer and this time-telling sculpture as it imparts its oracle-like wisdom.”
The thing about outdoor sculptures is that they often ‘fight’ their location — they may be striking, but they clash with the landscape. Harber’s pieces do exactly the opposite; they complement rather than compete.
“Possibly because I had no formal training, and it has taken me years to perceive myself as an artist, my work has always been subservient to its surroundings — an embellishment.”
Another signature piece: his Torus, a gleaming circle of metal with a hole in the center, so highly polished that the environment in which it’s placed — lawns, water, gardens and sky — are reflected perfectly on the surface. The startling and beautiful effect makes it seem the piece is transparent and solid at the same time — author Rich Hoffman described it fondly as “like a wormhole through time and space.”
Harber’s got a funny story about an early version of it.
“The Torus, which is still one of my favorite pieces, evolved from a previous design, called the Portal, which many years ago I installed at a stunning villa on the banks of Lake Como, Italy. The setting was perfect, the client was overjoyed, the blue sky was reflected in the metal, as was the burning hot Italian sun, resulting in a small dot of focused sunlight which created elegant, smoldering lines of ash on the tinder-dry leaves and grass surrounding the sculpture. The hazard was averted by creating a large circular sand bunker around the piece to ‘better show the sculpture.’ This near-miss of daily arson meant that I had to redesign the Portal to remove any concave surfaces and thus the Torus was born with its elegant convex distorting mirrored faces.”
That brings us neatly around to the question of how Harber handles the elements when designing and crafting the sculptures. Works are on display in so many far-flung parts of the world, from the Middle Eastern desert to the dampish lawns of England, to snowbound middle America.
“The heat and sun of Lake Como was more than a challenge,” he says. “The sand-blasting winds of the Arab peninsula and Moscow with a predicted temperature of way below -30 degrees Celsius presented their own technical challenges.”
Harber’s newest design is called the Alveare Wall.
“It’s inspired by the cells of a beehive, embellished by subtle patterns such as a Fibonacci spiral,” he says. “The combination of mirrored apertures and their reflections creates charming optical illusions.”
For this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Harber and his team created Nyneve, a silicon bronze aerofoil piece shaped like a leaf, with the veined texture of tree bark. The sculpture, named after the Lady of the Lake of Arthurian legend, sits in a quiet pond in the Savills. And in the water, Harber placed 64 hinged leaf-like steel petals attached to a hidden, intricate electronic system. The gilded petals float and flutter, creating ripples across the surface.
Another exciting new project just unveiled in mid-May brought Harber back to New York City.
“We’ve finally taken the plunge and opened a roof terrace show garden adorned with a selection of my sculptures, at the D&D Building,” he says.
The opportunity came out of Harber’s friendship with kitchen designer Christopher Peacock, who has a showroom on the 5th floor of the D&D Building with a spacious terrace. Placed amidst planters bedecked with river birch and tropicals created by noted New York landscape designer Janice Parker, Harber’s pieces will welcome visitors and showcase his artistry throughout the seasons.
“I’m constantly creating new designs. The real joy for me is to meet a client, designer, developer, architect or end user, and share with them the passion and concept of something that can be tailored exclusively to their project,” Harber says.
Casual Living | August 2019