The work — entitled The Road Not Taken — is modelled on a mariner's astrolabe. John was originally inspired by the marine instruments he'd encountered at the Shipwreck Museum in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight where he made several drawings. "I was fascinated with how objects reflect our history and geographical location," he says.
The work follows on from another monumental piece John completed for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. Strange Meeting, a two-piece marble and granite composition weighing 27 tonnes, was inspired by the eponymous poem by First World War poet Wilfred Owen. It was placed outside Beijing Olympic stadium and was the only British large-scale sculpture displayed in Beijing during the games.
John sees these pieces as tributes to his North East background. He sees the region as "having led the way over the past twenty years in terms of placing art within the public realm," (Antony Gormley's Angel of the North and Sean Henry's Couple at Newbiggin and Man with Potential Selves in Newcastle city centre are just a few of the more successful recent examples of what John's referring to).
Having beaten numerous international sculptors to win his Chinese Olympic commission, John is understandably hopeful that the forthcoming London Olympiad will offer further opportunities to artists like himself. However, given the tyrannical dominance of Turner Prize-orientated "sculpture," within the metrocentric village of the London art world, that could be wishful thinking. (To describe Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Phillipsz's sound installation as "sculpture" is to fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of the world sculpture.)
Meanwhile John's recent Chinese commissions have again demonstrated that British sculpture is a broader church than the Tate mandarins would have you believe. It is respected the world over and opportunities for ambitious working artists are now as likely to come from elsewhere in the global art economy as from more parochial UK commissions.
You can listen to John discussing his Beijing Olympic commission on a short BBC video here.
