The Offering - Robbie Rowlands

The Offering is a sculptural intervention created by Robbie Rowland’s. Rowland’s transforms a run down, soon to be demolished, church into a piece of art. He doesn’t try to glamour it up, refusing to alter the obvious signs of decay. Rowland’s explores the nostalgia and raw emotion hidden in the walls and floors of the church. He achieves this by carving into the walls and floors, peeling back layers of walls and ceilings that have been put down by previous owners to form sensuous shapes, revealing various social and historical functions - good and bad.

Rowland’s method of work involves sawing into surfaces, creating long strips, which are then coiled and placed to form curved sculptures. Rowland describes the cutting process as ‘incredibly tense’ as it demands full attention. When sawing through floorboards he would staple lengths of calico to keep the pieces in tact. He takes this structurally sound form of a church and turns it to liquid.

Coming from a churchy background, Rowland’s felt that he was possibly pushing the boundaries and doing something quite dangerous by cutting into the church. It was a huge decision for Rowland’s to cut the cross bar out from a cupboard, wondering, “What would mum think?” Ultimately, cutting out this cross highlighted the symbol of the crucifix and this cut out was used to form an organic sculpture in another room. Rowland created his own doors and pathways to lead you around the church, controlling the way you view his work and making you view it his way.

In previous works, Rowland would rely greatly on floors. It came to a shock to him that this church was without any, just dirt and the remains of wooden stumps. Rowland’s uses this to his advantage, shaping his splices and cut outs around these stumps to lead your around the abandoned area that was the floor. A floor which once supported a whole community.

The Offering is an emotive experience. It’s a reflection on the site history and how similar we are to the built environment that is the church. Rowland’s forces you to take a stance. To become part of the demolition process and to look at this building in a new light. Realising spaces mean something.

I know that most of you thought it was a joke. "How is this art?" But i got right into it. I enjoyed it.