Mantle
In Mantle Thacker employs beautifully sinuous, serpentine lines of seemingly unravelling ‘S’ shaped curves which convey William Hogarth’s ideal Line of Beauty (an essential part of Hogarth’s theory of aesthetics as described in Analysis of Beauty (1753)). The sensuous, melodious shape animates the sculpture giving it a sense of lightness and energy, belying the heaviness of the marble. The exquisite smoothness of the polished marble, contrasts with the rougher, unpolished pieces of the stone. The gold leaf which intersperses along the interiors of the curves, catches the light as it dances along the surface of the sculpture. The ingenuity of the title, Mantle, creates suggestions within the mind: the upper back of a bird, the material that gives light by an incandescent flame, the interior of the earth rising above the central core or the figurative, flowing ‘cloak’ of responsibility passed on to others; or a veil shrouding our consciousness allowing for a subliminal reaction to the sculpture.