4 x 4 Syria

My son was visiting Berlin and met a Syrian guy who he got chatting to. The Syrian was a refugee and talked a lot about the situation in Syria and how difficult it was living in a war torn country. When my son got back to England the guy sent him a picture of his town and said that the building in the centre was actually the house where he used to live. I was quite amazed by the way that some people have to come to terms with appalling conditions in their lives but also that we just take it for granted that it is quite normal to encounter these things on the internet or through television. Its the strangeness of watching the news whilst eating your dinner.

I have recently been working on a series of sculptures that are all based on building that are half demolished through such things as war. It seemed right to use the photo that my son had been sent as part of one of these sculptures. I will probably make it part of a series of 4.

Smashed Gandalf

landscape glasses

Again this comes from Landscape Walking. The structures are based on photos of a section of the landscape near Ditching Beacon.

Dorset Tornado

Something about the breaking sound that seems to say stick me back together. It doesn't really say how though. Smashing really, or maybe smashing reality.

Riot glasses

Updated version of Riot Glasses 1 at top and also 2 others from the series clockwise Riot Glasses 2 and Ohio Tornado Glasses. Each one of the series uses photographs from epic news stories which are then recomposed by collaging them onto objects and reforming them.

Our Cosmic Burden

Photos: Matt Page

These are all the sculptures together. They can be arranged in a grid or randomly and can be spaced any distance apart or in any combination or pairing. They could be seen on plinths or at floor level. It would be great to see them in a variety of spaces. Each one carries a small globe or world so that when people walk between them they appear to be orbiting or moving in unison.

Our Cosmic Burden - Plinth pair

Photo: Matt Page.

Some parts of Our Cosmic Burden have been made with pairs in mind. Its just the way that things work out sometimes with ideas. It seems easier to work on more than one piece at a time and for some reason one starts influencing the other so you find yourself trying to balance them out. A sort of conceptual interdependancy. Its not like they cant ever be seperated though. They are like the other figures in the piece. They could be viewed together or seperately. Its kind of nice to think of sculptural pieces being independant and having a character of their own. Their relationship to other pieces then becomes a developing thing within itself.

Our Cosmic Burden

This is possibly the first photo that I have of them all together. There are 16 of them and they can be exhibited in any format really but normally I didn't envisage them so crowded together. Pushing them together though makes it look like a protest meeting which is rather nice.

Had a photo session a couple of weeks ago with Matt Page taking the photos in a studio session so will be posting a variety of them over the next few weeks.

Ninga discovers cats creep

 At first the turtle seemed to be able to cope with the idea of height but then his brains got the better of him and like the rest of us he started seeking structure and security.

 The turtle was a present from matt Page who just snuck it out of his pockets and self conciously said something like"I've got you a present. Is this any good for you". I really like the idea of presents. Sometimes it would be nice to arrive at the studio and find a little pile of presents left at the door as if somebody else was taking control of the creative process.

Many years ago whilst I was a Foundation student I created a sculpture that was some stairs that started in a pit and then ended in mid air. In some ways I saw it as a fold away sculpture in that if you folded the top half away it would snuggly fo back into the ground. Maybe it came from being a boy scout and when you dug a fire pit you always hung onto the turf to replant over the patch where the fire had been when you had finished with it.

Chinese whispers

 

 

Most probably best left unsaid.

solar couple

The start of something that could be quite big. The indications are that the one thing is pointing to another. Kind feels like it could be pointing towards a window.

Samuel L Jackson A Cat creeps.

Its just the way that it happens really. Spaand time seem interchangeable.

House Barier

Its a question of reality or maybe intervention in it.

barier 2

Its like the world taking control or possibly the other way round.

Our cosmic burden (Betty Boop)

This is part of the 16 piece sculpture Our Cosmic Burden. It can be exhibited in a variable way but usually in a variation on a grid formation. Sometimes on plinths but sometimes on the floor.

Crash Barier

I lusted after a photographic scene when there was a lot of road works near my studio. Just about got it together to photo which was lucky because it all disapeared just after I took the photos. Slicing them up has acted as a way of structuring the sculpture.

Whole World

This is an extention of a piece I did a few years ago now which had a much smaller globe and the globe was suspended in a hole that went between an upper and lowere layer. The whole thing was contained in a glass vitrine.

I have had plans to exhibit it with a larger globe inside a fridge which is ajar so that the light is on and peiople can peek inside.

Cosmic cup sculpture

I suppose this is about as literal as I am going to get. Molecules, atoms, particles, all there. Apparently particles pass through us all the time and carry on to wherever they are going to end up. It kind of changes the way that you look at anything really.