| Artist Statement: |
I want to talk in common language about common shared
experience; profound, intuitively felt common ground, those haunting
ancient images that never ose their magic or relevance
today.I like children to be moved by my sculpture.
I make sculpture to go into homes, offices and public
places. I want them to be part of peoples everyday
experience, I would rather put a large sculpture in the
bathroom and drape a towel over it, or leave one in the
entrance hall for people to lean against while chatting on
the telephone than raise it on a pedestal and distance it.
They are for children to climb over and hug, I love to go
back and visit a sculpture after some time and see the
patina polished away by constant caresses. I like to see
smaller pieces sit on coffee tables where grannies can pick
them up to feel the weight and grandchildren can borrow them
to play soldiers.
I work with modern materials, techniques and machinery to make pieces that will outlive generations , I am particularly fond of copper because of its association with history, it records the history of its making, every mark describes the process, it is a material as unsurpassed today as it was in the dawn of civilization, yet underneath the copper I use high tech high density synthetic foam and modeling compounds that give me way more freedom and spontaneity than traditional materials like clay or stone.
Art has power if it can talk across time, free of time, the more time an image has had a physical existence the more power it has. Many objects in the contemporary world such as electronics and shaving cream are like a mad man’s delusions, transitory , lacking in purpose or influence. These are dangerous times for artists, things that have immense power in a turbulent changing context can become historical curiosities in a decade or less, they are illusions. Eternal images, man, beast, ring, stick can have amazing power if kept in resonance yet if they become mere lifeless reproductions they are below contempt. Images are easy to hunt, but to capture them alive nearly impossible.