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I
am a stone-carver because I love working
with the material of stone and I love
the process of carving.
In
the past my stone works have been
approached as abstract experiments in
unearthing forms through the carving
process, but I did have the intention of
making the works appear like fossilised
artefacts or bones, as it seemed
appropriate for the material I use
(there are parallels with archaeology
and geology in this unearthing process
). I
wish to exploit the beauty of the
material and also give an impetus to new
ways of carving stone (a very old
process ).
Although
I have worked with a variety of stones I
must express a particular liking for the
indigenous stones of Britain;
sandstones, limestones and granites. I
prefer their dull rockiness and rough
textures as opposed to smoothly polished
marbles. Most of the sculptures also
incorporate broken-off parts to
their form, this is intentional, I use
this mainly to add a little dynamism and
contrast and to reinforce the
experimental nature of the carving
process.
Recently,
I have become
more attracted to working on figurative
sculpture. This desire was sparked by
my trip to Italy in the Summer of 2001,
where I saw so much high quality
figurative stone sculpture, my eyes were
opened to the power and relevance of
this form of art. It is a new challenge
really, I felt my abstract sculptures
were becoming a bit too contrived, I was
repeating the same 'tricks' that I'd
learnt. By exploring figurative
sculpture - representing aspects of the
human figure or still-life objects, I am
imposing new challenges on myself. But
that is not to say that I don't
thoroughly think about the subject
matter before I start, the jade mallet,
marble fish 'n' chips etc are strong
ideas, I feel, that express deeper
concepts beyond simple representation.
I
am also doing more 'fun' stuff as well,
for festivals and exhibitions, exploring
other media and methods. This runs
concurrently with my carving work and
sparks off many ideas and provides
welcome feedback.
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