I am a carver mainly as I like working with natural materials and I enjoy the process of carving, the mental and physical challenge.

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  wished 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 incorporated broken-off parts to their form, this was intentional, I used 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. I have also recently begun painting again, sparked by new ideas derived from my long-standing interest in computer graphics.