When I began my training, I thought I would be a painter, I loved colour so much aa well as the smell and texture of oil paints. In fact, before I did my Diploma in Figurative Sculpture at Heatherley, I completed a Diploma in Portraiture. The first project we undertook on the course was a portrait head, sculpted in clay. I realised straight away that I wanted to work in three dimensions.
As I made more and more sculptures, I realised that I wasn’t interested in directly reproducing reality. After working in almost infinitely malleable clay, carving stone was a liberation from the dominance of reality. It was easier to stay focused on the essential elements of structure and design.
Now, I’m a purely abstract sculptor. My work is all about the twist, the wave and the loop. It doesn’t reproduce reality, but it does – for me, at least – represent it.
That’s quite a journey for someone who started by wanting to be a figurative portrait painter! But, you never know where the road’s going to take you until you start walking it…
