About
The aim all along, as far as commissioned work would allow, has been to develop the creative possibilities within contemporary applied sculpture, across a range of wrought materials.
When material is wrought, worked and developed – as carving, or modelled for casting – a creative intention is evident in the outcome. Where the object-quality of work bears the sense of a thing wrought, directly achieved, and material authenticity is taken to be a part of that, one encounters sculpture as a particular physical thing that directly bears a creative intention.
In an early monograph on Moore (1934), Herbert Read stated that ‘sculpture is not a cabinet art, suitable for drawing rooms or boudoirs: it is a monumental art…primarily a public art, or a community art.’ Ten years later he affirmed this view: ‘The sculptor is essentially a public artist. He cannot confine himself to the bibelots which are all that fall within the capacity of the individual patron of our time. The sculptor is driven into the open, into the church and the market place…’
These were views expressed, of course, in their own time and occasion. But I share these thoughts in seeking to pursue creative applied sculpture. ‘Monumentality’ can then follow from serving a function or more generally being appropriate in a given context.
Applied sculpture is an on-going pursuit. There is a sense of the value in work done within a received or given sphere of concern – perhaps architectural, ecclesiastical or commemorative. But this sense of something recognisable as sculpture across time can nonetheless – and should – embrace a modernist imperative to develop the expressive realisation of the work, by way of and by working through the resources of the material itself. In so doing, the work can seek to be progressive and singular.
The salience of sculpture within the archaeological record is of a piece with its recourse to durable materials. As such, sculpture can stand as an embodied testament to the significance accorded to matters of death, identity, time and belief. This is physical testamentary work; a concrete witnessing to human affairs and, as such, something more than a mere contribution to the passing show.
Publications
Towards The Verbal-Visual Object (PDF) Looking for progress in inscriptional lettering. Sculpture Journal vol 18.2 [2009]
Transformations Of Matter (PDF) Contemporary carving in stone. Sculpture Journal vol 21.1 [2012]
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