Inspiration for the Work | Thomas J Price: Ancient Feelings

Why It Matters

Ancient Feelings shows how historic sculpture can be reinterpreted to address modern identity, influencing how public art engages audiences with layered cultural narratives.

Key Takeaways

• Childhood museum visits deeply shaped Price's artistic vision.
• Ancient Feelings merges historic sculpture influence with contemporary subjects.
• Fictional characters draw from real-life encounters and emotional cues.
• Sculptural fragments evoke power, majesty, and layered identity narratives.
• Work creates presence by intertwining history, poetry, and modern observation.

Summary

Thomas J Price, a London‑based sculptor, explains that his piece “Ancient Feelings” originates from formative trips to the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum, where he first sensed how power, majesty and status are encoded in historic sculpture.

The work fuses that institutional legacy with contemporary observation: Price studies real people on the street, captures a fleeting emotional gesture, and then casts a fictional persona that carries both the weight of antiquity and modern nuance. He emphasizes that the sculpture’s fragmented heads echo the partial narratives of past statues while the imagined subject is built from lived encounters.

Price remarks, “I remember feeling a connection to these heads and fragments, drawn into their potential histories,” and adds, “Often I’ll see somebody who I think is interesting; they communicate an element of character I want to infuse.” These statements illustrate his method of blending archival reverence with spontaneous human insight.

By re‑contextualizing museum iconography through present‑day figures, Price challenges viewers to reconsider how history is visualized and who is granted monumental status. The piece signals a broader trend in contemporary art that bridges heritage with current social narratives, prompting dialogue about representation, identity, and public memory.

Original Description

Thomas J Price shares how childhood visits to the British Museum & the Victoria & Albert Museum inspired Ancient Feelings—a sculpture drawn from history, fragments, people, and emotion.