Woking in Surrey is only 28 minutes from London’s Waterloo Station, when the trains run on time. This August, the town’s many commuters are suffering more delays than usual as London’s busiest station is closed for maintenance. But there is good news on platform one, where a sculpture by Woking-born Sean Henry has been installed along with four other larger-than-life works that complement the artist’s solo show of painted bronze figures and drawings in the town’s award-winning museum, The Lightbox. At the private view on Friday (11 August) of Face to Face: the Figurative Sculpture of Sean Henry (until 5 November), the artist revealed why placing Seated Man (2011) on platform one was worth going the extra mile with Network Rail and South West Trains (Woking’s station master received special praise for backing the artist and the gallery). The artist’s father, who used to commute to London, invented the Vortok Coil, a device that makes sure that rails stay safely fixed to their sleepers. The success of his father’s invention—around 50 million have been sold worldwide—meant that Henry senior could stop commuting to London and when he sold his company, Henry junior could cast his first bronze figures. Henry’s commissions include another inventor, Tim Berners-Lee of worldwide-web fame, whose portrait sculpture stands proud in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
