Missing Yew
Missing Yew will be a durable upright composition created in consultation with, and contributions from, Reading’s diverse communities.
The aim is to create an approximately five-metre-tall durable Portland stone-like sculpture, whose pale-light colour and texture will dominate the mainly dark glass, brick, and steel surroundings.
The resulting collective sculpture will be a landmark, a crossroad, a meeting place, ‘From Community to Community’.
Currently, with support from tree specialists, we are exploring the possibilities for this project to become an eco-sculpture, by introducing living trees as part of this composition. To be precise, five beach trees will surround the erected sculpture, which, over time, by the horticultural process of bending, entangling, and fusing will become one interconnected body.
The branches of this united ecosystem will become a canopy approximately 2.5 metres above the sculpture and, below, these five slightly bowed tree trunks will resemble buttresses that are propping the roof of the ‘living tree like a cathedral’.
This easily accessible eco-sculpture will become a meeting place and a contemplative area.
Petre Nikoloski, sculptor/installation artist
Petre came to Reading in 1997 when Open Hand Open Space invited him to finalise his several years’ research into blind and visually impaired people and visual art. The resulting installation was shown at OHOS Gallery in 1998. That was Petre’s tenth year since leaving the Balkans, and he was creating on-the-go, on-site in the museums, galleries and public spaces here in the UK and internationally.
Selected Solo Exhibitions – Chifte Hammam Skopje, National Gallery of The Republic of North Macedonia (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia (2011, 2004, 1989); Kolegijum Artistikum, Sarajevo, BH (2010); Norden Farm, Maidenhead, England (2003); Contemporary Art Gallery, Pancevo, Serbia (2003,1989); Monsaraz, Portugal (2003); Open Hand/Open Space gallery, Reading, England (1998); Tasmanian School of Art at Launceston, Tasmania, Australia (1997); Irwell Way Sculpture Trail, Rosendale, Lancashire, England (1994); Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; Leeds City Art Gallery, England (1993); St George’s Church, Bloomsbury, London, and London Ecology Centre (1992); Leeds ArtSpace Society, Leeds, England and Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens, Harrogate, England (1991); Grizedale Forest, Sculpture Trail, Cumbria, England (1990)
Selected Group Exhibitions – Kolegijum Artistikum, Sarajevo, BH (2009); MKC, Skopje, Macedonia (2008); Collins Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (2007); Contemporary Art Gallery, Pancevo, Serbia (1999, 2002); Stanley Picker Gallery Kingston-upon-Thames, England and Edinburgh City Art Gallery, Scotland (2000); Sacuyazawa Village, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan; Sabancy Art Centre, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turska (1997); Ernst Museum, Budapest, Hungary, Kunst Bunker, Nurnberg, Germany and BANFF Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta, Canada (1994); Hatfield University, Hatfield, England (1992); Cherry Hinton Hall Park, Cambridge, England (1991).