Chance encounters are what I thrive on. Tapping into the sub conscious and recording the everyday people and places around me.
I improvise and re-use but what underpins everything is that I require at least seven good reasons before I can take any idea forward.
The number seven is saturated with symbolism, spiritual superstition and has deep roots in classical antiquity. I work on paper, using long scrolls but also in video, digital making and hands on clay.
The immediacy of drawing appeals. Capturing the essence quickly. Drawing has become the scaffolding of my multimedia practice.
I have learnt the value of the small sketch and that is how most things start.
At a time when AI can do almost everything for you, the handprint of the artist was just one of the reasons I took a leap in the MFA show project ‘Me Neither’, working directly in clay portraiture.
The number seven is used on a practical level with seven sets of sitters in seven days. The day starts with a self-portrait in clay, that same head is transformed over the course of the day with one sitter following another. A ten-minute timer is set for each sitting.
The process is documented, and the last sitter is transformed to a self-portrait again. I only draw the front of the head and if I am looking intently enough the sides start to draw themselves.
The first sitter doesn’t always meet or know the next sitter, but they have an impact on the next sculpture.
I hold reference to the butterfly effect, chaos theory and the Chinese proverb “the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can be felt on the other side of the world.”
I begin the day, wake up with myself and end the day with myself.
I am born and it is just me. I die and it is just me.
The clay for the portraits comes from the earth, will not be fired, will be recycled and returned to the earth.
I like the idea of something being incomplete. It is always a step towards that something else.