Collector Description
Shoulders of Giants transforms the classical image of Nike, the goddess of victory, into a contemporary monument. Painted aluminum wings rise outward to support a mirrored gold orb, a symbol of realized dreams and the legacy of greatness. First conceived in a dream, the sculpture embodies the idea that achievement is never solitary but always rests on the giants who came before.
Catalogue Description
Shoulders of Giants (2024) emerged first in a dream, its vision transposed into sculptural form through painted aluminum and a mirrored gold orb. The monumental wings recall Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, reimagined here as an abstracted architecture of triumph rather than a figural body. At the center, the radiant orb hovers like a celestial prize—reflective, elusive, and aspirational.
The title invokes Isaac Newton’s celebrated phrase, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” underscoring the interdependence of human achievement across time. Yet McNaughton situates this within the present, where victory is no longer confined to the canon of antiquity but also claimed by contemporary figures who reinvent themselves as champions in the arenas of sport, entertainment, and digital culture. The orb’s mirrored surface captures the viewer and their surroundings, situating them within this same continuum of striving, legacy, and spectacle.
As with McNaughton’s broader practice, Shoulders of Giants weaves together art-historical precedent and contemporary myth-making. By fusing dream, history, and modern ambition, the work collapses distinctions between personal revelation and collective memory, offering a monument to victory that is at once timeless and resolutely of the present.
