''Love, The Most Beautiful Of Absolute Disasters'', popularly known as ''Venus and Cupid'' is a sculpture by Shane A. Johnstone which stands on a slight promontory beside Morecambe Bay on the eastern approach to

Morecambe Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea. Name The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), w ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England.

The sculpture

The sculpture depicts a seated woman, facing out to sea, holding the hands of a child who is suspended in the air extending horizontally from her arms, as if being swung round. It is covered in multicoloured

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

. It was originally intended for St George's Quay in Lancaster. It was erected in 2005 on Scalestone Point, site of a former gun emplacement, between the coast road and the sea, and commemorates the 24 cockle-pickers who died in the bay in 2004. In 2011 the artist threatened to destroy the sculpture because the local council was not prepared to pay for its insurance and upkeep. The Venus & Cupid Arts Trust was formed to save the sculpture and to care for other public art in Morecambe. The trust is responsible for the sculpture's insurance, maintenance and repairs. The sculpture was damaged by frost in the winter of 2017–2018, which caused some of the mosaic tiles to fall off. It was moved temporarily into the

Arndale Centre Arndale Centres were the first "American style" malls to be built in the United Kingdom. In total, twenty three Arndales have been built in the United Kingdom, and three in Australia. The first opened in Jarrow, County Durham, in 1961, as a ped ...

in Morecambe in November 2018, for repair, and was returned to the sea front in June 2019. The sculptor, Shane Johnstone, used the Japanese technique of kintsugi, replacing the missing tiles with

gold leaf Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets (usually around 0.1 µm thick) by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-kara ...

to celebrate the repair rather than attempting to hide it. The repair cost over £4,000, including the cost of moving the sculpture.

The artist

Shane Johnstone describes himself as "originally a fairground artist in Blackpool and Morecambe". His work includes murals, mosaic work, sculpture and stained glass and he has been involved in many community art projects, including a 2015 piece of public art in Morecambe's West End, and the renovation of

Ulverston Ulverston is a market town and a civil parish in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 11,524, increasing at the 2011 census to 11,678. Historically in Lancashire, it lies a few mi ...

's statue of

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American Double act, comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–19 ...

. Johnstone has said of ''Venus and Cupid'': "People love it. There’s dozens of sculptures along the promenade and two that get talked about – Eric Morecambe and my sculpture".

References

External links

Venus & Cupid Arts Trust
official website * {{coord, 54.08436, -2.83298, format=dms, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Outdoor sculptures in England Sculptures of Cupid Sculptures of Venus Monuments and memorials in Lancashire Buildings and structures in Morecambe