'Taking the Toll' was the centrepiece for the important solo exhibition of Jon Buck's sculpture titled ‘Time of Our Lives’ in 2019 which not only celebrated life and its incredible diversity but also drew attention to our precarious future.

Jon Buck has always felt compelled by concerns for the environment, in particular our human relationship to the natural world. His experience working as a bird-keeper at Bristol Zoo in his youth was an important creative inspiration, and through his knowledge of nature and science he began to investigate the ways in which sculpture could stimulate a deeper primal physical response. In earlier works Buck explored surface textures and markings imprinted into the surface of the bronze, which led to an interest in pushing the
boundaries of colour through experimentation with patinas and painted surfaces in collaboration with his foundry, Pangolin Editions.

Recently, Buck’s colour palette has evolved to radiate softer hues and has moved away from vivid, high gloss surfaces towards more earthy, organic patinations. Both the colour and texture of these new works imbue a mineral quality, and reinforce their connection to nature.

One of Buck's largest works 'Taking The Toll' marks an important development in Buck’s work where he has used raised animal glyphs on the surface of a simple form to communicate the cultural imagery that is immediately conjured by the title. It is one of three bell forms that Buck has created and he says:

"I have chosen to use the bell motif for a number of reasons. There is of course a long-standing tradition
of making bells in bronze casting but in addition bells are redolent with cultural meaning and there is an
inherent ambiguity in how they are used. In many societies bells are rung joyously in celebration but at the
same time they can also be tolled as dire warnings of imminent danger.

I would like my current work to embrace both these aspects. The surfaces of the bronzes have an intricate
network of relief motifs celebrating the biodiversity of the natural world. At the same time these bells can
also be seen as a visual lament for the pressures we are imposing on our natural environments and the
creatures that inhabit them. The title of the show ‘Time of Our Lives’ underlies these sentiments. While in
the last forty or fifty years many of us humans have ‘never had it so good’, in that same period according
to the WWF, the earth has lost more than half of its wild animals."