Artist statement June 2025

 

Making art has always been a way for me to try to comprehend the creation. A way of looking with awe at the manifold forms and changing light that I/we experience. Trying to make a sense of and to give honour to the extraordinariness that surrounds this individual experiencing consciousness.

 

Drawing is my first language, used all the time for observation and looking, beginning ideas, fast exploration and just love of mark and line. I use whatever’s at hand-graphite, twig and ink- drawing on sand at the beach.

 

Sculpture is a natural habitat for me, it always just made sense. I like to model and assemble with anything I can get my hands on. Clay however is very dear to me, both as an origination material for mold making or fired with a surface in ceramics. I love its elemental quality, humble but so adaptable and expressive. 

 

I’m not so involved with the individual object - I prefer to work using form in a space, either architectural or natural site-specific. Then I can play with pattern, repetition, modules, and develop a sacred space - of contemplation and perhaps with a meditative quality.

 

So I work in a dialogue with plants and trees, people, animals and birds, different threads of exploration of one aspect or another of the expression of life energy. I never really know what direction I will be taken - the living beings, elements, forms and colour will lead me, sometimes gently, sometimes not, into the unknown. My task is to remain open to whatever I hear from the land, sky or sea, whatever a plant or a bird tells me, or sometimes even a human, and then playing with the materials offered, go wherever I get taken - often into mythos or archetype.

 

In order for the work to be “right’. I have to get myself out of the way, and then with a clear heart and mind I’m able to respond. This is not always easy, and during the hard times I stay disciplined, if I can, by drawing, making pots, colour notes and eco-printing - process-based physical activities. As a quiet mind is needed to work for work to flow, I do a lot of meditation.