‘Wax and Wane’ was commissioned in 1995 by the Jersey Public Sculpture Trust and the States of Jersey Environment Department as part of the Gorselands public art trail at Les Creux Country Park in St. Brelade, Jersey. As a final year student of sculpture at the Kent Institute of Art & Design at the time, this was Allchurch’s first public art commission and it remained on site for over 26 years.
The design, constructed from layers of cast concrete (pigmented in the distinctive pink of Jersey granite) echoes rhythms found in nature, such as the spiral of a shell and the waxing and waning of the moon and tides. It also responded to the many scars of human intervention in the local landscape, from Napoleonic fortifications, the old quarry and disused railway, desalination plant and concrete observation tower from the German Occupation in WWII.
One of very few of Allchurch’s extant sculptures from her early career, ‘Wax and Wane’ was constructed during the summer of 1995 at premises provided by Jersey Zoo – subject to her willingness to share the space with a recuperating python who occupied a glass tank behind her while she worked.
Over the years, the sculpture fell into some disrepair, and in 2023 was removed and kept in storage by the States of Jersey before being made good by the artisanal stonemason Mark Guest and installed within the communal garden area of the ‘Northern Quarter’ in St Helier in 2025. The sculpture now sits close to Allchurch’s 2026 commission, ‘This Place in Time’, the two works, spanning her career, both forming part of the Percentage for Art provision for this Andium Homes affordable housing scheme.
Project managed by Chris Clifford of Private & Public Gallery and Siobhann McLeod.