` New Hall Art Collection - Exhibitions

  • About exhibition

    Artist's Statement

    I am aiming to produce some new work for the show in July along the lines of the ‘Sa Riera’ piece (seen above).  My more abstract work gives me the freedom to relax and to throw steel around in more random way.  I can read landscapes and figuration into these abstract pieces and they often surprise me with subtle connections to places and people in my life.

    Making sculpture keeps me in touch with my earlier unselfconscious self where the world had a connectedness: the birds to the trees to the sky. It is a way of losing myself in that world again. A world of shapes, light and texture. Capable of banishing anxiety and bringing air to my lungs. I try to give my sculptures a freedom to become themselves and creativity, at it’s best, evolves freely and in a space of it’s own. The intensity of the process with the fire, and crackle and spitting of the steel focuses my memory and sense of mystery of the intangible wonder of early childhood. I relish the contrast between the strong physicality of the work and the fleeting butterfly of my intuitions and ideas.

    Before going to college I did evening classes with a sculptor called Jean Gibson and this experience gave me the confidence to apply to Art School. I got a first class honours degree at St Martin’s School of Art in 1979. St Martin’s opened my eyes to abstraction, serendipity and spontanaeity. During this time I discovered steel and have never looked back. I enjoy it’s flexibility and strength. It is the material of my choice for the subjects that I want to create. This period was inspirational and explosively creative. I then went on to do an M.A at the Royal College of Art 1980- 1983. Here I received the Special Melchett Award for work in Steel, the Fulham Pottery Award and a travel scholarship to Carrara.

    I have produced many public and private commissions and am in collections in the US , France, Switzerland, Italy and the UK. A large commission in collaboration with Levitt Bernstein Architects on the redevelopment of the Old Royal Free Hospital in Islington in 1993 won the Europa Nostra Prize. In 1995 I won an award from The Jackson Pollock-Lee Krasner Foundation for work to date.