Artist's Statement
“I have been carving stone for 25 years. I prefer limestones and marbles for their texture and hardness. The medium attracts me because of its permanence and inherent beauty and I look for random blocks containing veins and imperfections that can be exploited.
Primary sources for my work are found in nature, the human body and the subconscious. I see the physical world in terms of shape and mass and often consider the air that is displaced or the space that is occupied by an object with mass. Working with stone helps reinforce this way of seeing or understanding form.
For 20 years I have been absorbed in abstraction, under the influence of modernists like Arp and Brancusi. Recently, however, I have also begun to branch out to explore abstractions of the human form, especially via anatomy and osteology. The history of human figure sculpture is a deeper well than that of 20th century abstraction and I am finding its universality is redolent with meaning that can speak a different, more intense language. There is something uncomfortable about the corporeal, and both the repulsion of, as well as the attraction to, the visceral interests me.
During the 17 years that I spent as a sculpture conservator I worked on stone carvings from the megalithic, medieval and modern periods. I view this time as my apprenticeship; it imparted a deep appreciation of the context of the object and the historical thread that links all artisans and artists who have ever worked stone.
My art practice could be considered traditional; I am certainly not a conceptual artist. I am mainly struggling to release pure form from small pieces of the Earth’s crust. When the work goes badly it is mental torture; when it goes well it is like alchemy. Either way I could not do without it. Sculpting fulfils a fundamental need.”
— January 2012