STATEMENT FOR CANTERBURY OPEN STUDIOS 2005

My work is mainly concerned with the natural environment and its relationship with the urban and industrial environments. I often use natural materials to express ideas, taking them through various processes, such as reassembly and painting. Sometimes I combine them with other more recognisable industrial materials. At the core, nature is always visibly recognisable and I often use woodland craft skills in the making process.

I have created one new piece of work for the for this Open Studio event, called "Blue Descending Stairs" which takes it's name from a pun on work by Marcel Duchamp which was not deemed fit for exhibition in a gallery.

"Blue Descending Stairs" is a processed willow tree, stripped naked by removing the bark, which I made into a ball. The branches are split and pegged back into the trunk to form a spiral and are painted to give the work a higher level of artificiality, though the spiral in itself depicts one of nature’s most common forms. There are two maquettes of the piece in the garden which were both made from willow.

The other sculpture for this event, called "The Whins" (another word for gorse) was made for an earlier woodland exhibition and stood for some time in the actual place where the clump of gorse from which it is made was growing.

Again It is given a level of artificiality by paint, this time oil-based screen printing ink, a medium used only for art purposes. The colours are exaggerated versions of those found naturally in gorse.