Life Force: Feeling (2026) is a sculptural work by New Zealand artist John Allen — a piece of movement and feeling. A pōhutukawa root from a fallen tree in Northland rests in a natural groove in a piece of Greek limestone, as though it has always belonged there. Together complete.
The Life Force works speak to the unseen energy that animates all living things — the deep pulse that unites the visible and invisible, the personal and the universal. It is both what gives form and what moves through it. When a sculpture carries life force well, it creates a subtle but powerful exchange: of presence, aliveness, form and flow as one, simplicity and inner calm.
What makes Life Force: Feeling memorable is its invitation to observe. The branches loop and reach in multiple directions — not chaotically, but with the fluid ease of nature alive. In standing before it and taking a moment, you become aware of your own feeling: the way sensation moves, the way aliveness stirs. It does not depict feeling — it evokes it. The terracotta limestone grounds the piece, holding in stillness, ancient and unhurried, the perfect counterpoint.
