Process

Throughout my career the process of making has remained a crucial and central aspect of my artistic identity.

Questioning, exploring and conceptualising through the processes of lateral thinking, informs the relationship I build with an object which is fluid and organic; a dialogue in which the form can breath and be articulated. For me the process of making is akin to alchemy, a journey of discovery and influence between artist, ingredients and object.

The journey is an emotional, physical and intellectual experience, enjoyable and rewarding but also fraught with challenges, physically exhausting and mentally taxing. The reward often comes amidst the meditative state offered by the rhythm of making, when an insight gives rise to new forms, concepts and approaches.

Curiosity into fabrication techniques influences the concepts and context of my work coupled with the personal satisfaction that comes from venturing into unfamiliar territory, having to acquire and master new skills and knowledge of materials and processes. Through working with the inherent properties and nature of a material I gain insight into the natural world, and through the acquisition of the required skills I feel a connection to the history and tradition of human desire to create and shape our environments.

I am fortunate to have had an upbringing that developed and nurtured my desire to create tangible forms. Alongside my father’s work designing and building client based homes to feed the family, his passion was building timber and ply laminated boats in the various backyard of my childhood. He described the lines of a hull as ‘poetry in motion’, a hallmark I can still see in my sculpture and design aesthetics to this day.

Shed’s full of tools and my father’s practical knowledge base aided my enquiring mind and forged a connection between the head and hands. The concept of ‘thinking hands’ opened a path to understanding the world through problem solving, aesthetics decisions and finding ways to shape meaning from the materials at hand.