Whilst I am naturally a kinaesthetic, having a tactile, physical sense of my world and preferring to find personal expression through sculpture, I find my inspiration in all media, the more diverse the better.

Touch. I encourage everybody to handle my work, to take pleasure in their textures and forms and to be surprised and feel the joy that I felt in their creation.

Inspiration is drawn from many sources. From the early art, icons and artefacts from Australia, North America and Africa, to the European Neolithic period . 

I am particularly interested in Totems, Standing stones and megaliths; imposing timeless structures that shout “we are still here”. 

I am also fascinated by how some primitive forms can have very strong cross cultural and contemporary resonances.

Things ancient and timeless, things broken then recovered. How the contexts of the museum showcase can render ancient everyday objects, even discarded rubbish, beautiful.  

Risk and opportunity, fire, chaos and destruction are all recurrent themes in my work. Some pieces are razed as soon as they are made so that they can be reformed or integrated into a later work.

I will also push the materials to their structural limits often with rapid firing cycles or direct heat in order to encourage cracking, breaking and scorching. It is an organic, iterative process, and, it may seem very harsh, even illogical to take a piece that has been lovingly sculpted over many weeks and to literally throw it into a fire and trust in the end result. Many pieces are lost and thrown away, but those that survive are alive and unique, arising like phoenix from the ashes.

Playing  with contrasting  media and textures or mixing techniques, even the materials themselves are enough to generate a new idea, a new work. New ideas are worked through quickly and spontaneously either in my head and in the materials themselves rather than on paper. I like to work boldly and intuitively and rarely construct preliminary maquettes, thus  ensuring that all the energy and inspiration involved in it’s creation will be there in the completed piece.

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