Deeply influenced by his remarkable fourteen-year sailing voyage around the world, this Nautical Sphere sculpture captures the artist’s journey at sea, and the privilege of experiencing the ocean, with its stunning display of marine life in its most beautiful, powerful and natural form.
Neville meticulously designs and transcribes his expressions, using traditional scrimshawing techniques, onto a truly unique canvas – antique glass fishing floats, handmade spheres formed over one hundred years ago. The mass production of plastic would eventually replace these floats, forever changing our world, and with it, the delicate balance of our oceans and its valuable marine life.
This remarkable piece of art and sculpture measures 9.5” in diameter. Air bubbles suspended inside the heavy glass have been integrated into the hand-etched design. Rendered in exquisite detail, sea creatures are floating amongst the latitudes that circle the sphere – patterns formed when the molten orb was hand blown over a century ago.
This Nautical Sphere reflects the beauty and spectrum of ocean colors, with the delicate refraction of light through changing depths of glass, and the shifting shadows cast from the artist’s scrimshawed design.
Artist Bio
Neville Hockley was born in Southampton, England, and has lived most of his life by the sea. He is a graduate from the prestigious Parsons School of Design in New York City and also holds a degree from Portsmouth College of Art and Design in the UK.
In 1997 Neville founded i&D, a New York design studio, and grew his business into a multiple International Davy Award Winning agency. He is the author of Dream Time, a story published by Vanguard Press that chronicles his first ocean voyage from Australia to Italy.
In 2007 Neville and his wife, Catherine, set sail from New York to explore the world on their thirty-eight-foot cutter-rig sloop, Dream Time. For a remarkable fourteen years, sailing over 50,000 nautical miles across all four hemispheres, Neville continued to develop his carvings and unique scrimshaw designs. Neville’s life at sea and his creative diversity have been featured in dozens of magazines around the world.
When Neville is not sailing, he can be found working from his seaside studio in Long Beach, New York.
Generously donated by Neville Hockley
