About

 

Following five years studying philosophy (Balliol, Oxford; St John’s, Cambridge), the intention to work in academic publishing gave way in response to circumstance, to my other passion, sculpture. A five-year apprenticeship followed by six years’ further work in Dick Reid’s Workshop, led to self-employment in 1994.

The aim all along, as far as commissioned work would allow, was 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. There is less room to ‘hide’ than in installation work, fabricated or constructed sculpture. Where the object-quality of work bears the sense of a thing wrought, directly achieved, and material authenticity is a part of that, one encounters sculpture as particular physical things that directly bear a creative intention.

 

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]

 

Links

Royal Society of Sculptors

Ecclesiart

Lettering Arts Trust

Letter Exchange

Ralph Gurrey

Philip Gurrey