Made during the early eighties, the sculptures draw on the legacy of the constructed steel sculpture of Anthony Caro and David Smith. Lowe counters this tradition's stress on openness and lightness with a concern for the 'object' like that of Constantin Brancusi - he uses physically massive elements to create contained, emphatically volumetric structures. The sculptures also relate to ancient standing stones and to African sculpture, of which Lowe is a collector. They are particularly notable for the steel used. This originated in mistakes in the production line of a factory of the British Steel Corporation, and as such is unique to this body of work.
The sculptures have not been seen as a group since the two highly successful exhibitions at the Nicola Jacobs Gallery in which they were first shown (1981 and 1983).
