I am a young sculptor based in Maryport, in the North West of England. I came to sculpture relatively recently after a lifelong interest and involvement in art and craft, mostly of the textile variety, though I dabbled in paint, photography, collage, mixed media, paper making and many other disciplines. I am also a keen poet and combining poetry with visual art was an ongoing aspiration for me.

It’s hard to sum up what inspires me. My subject matter ranges from the figurative - people, animals, plant life, insects, shells, bones, trees - to the abstract, but the inspiration always comes from the natural world. I began with people and animal forms - perhaps the most obvious things to carve, but lately I have been leaning more towards expressing landscapes, elements, and microscopic structures, the more monumental of natural shapes, and this has led me to more abstract work as a way of representing things that are harder to carve simply as they appear.

Having said that my work is nature inspired, I also draw ideas and styles from mythology, and the art of ancient cultures, particularly the Celts, Egyptians, and Incas, and Japanese, and on a more recent note, from painters, such as Georgia O’Keefe, Franz Marc, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Indeed, I often feel more like a painter - only one who shapes an object, and lets the light do the work of producing tone and line.

From such an eclectic range of subjects, styles and sources of inspiration it is hard to draw a common thread. I attempt to capture the archetypal nature of the subject – with human and animal forms this often entails a paring down of detail, not unlike primitive art. In other more fractal, chaotic subjects - trees, landscapes, shells -this can mean the opposite - a building of complex textures, through detail to create the intricate nature of the subject.

So far I sculpt only in stone - I love the material, and the process of reduction. By surrendering to the limitations - the shape of the stone, the single colour, I become more focused, and the possibilities seem endless.

Telephone: 01900 816970