Shown in the ING Discerning Eye exhibition in the Mall Galleries, London, November 2024.
This sculpture, composed of a hammer and nails, symbolises the act of the oppressed overthrowing their oppressor. The nails represent the oppressed and the hammer represents their oppressor.
The metaphor raises a few questions . How did the nails become driven into the hammer? By another hammer? If so, is that other hammer a potential oppressor? Is the (unseen) second hammer just an oppressor in its own right, simply using the nails for its own ends?
Jar opener, spinning top, document clip, hand. 27x9x5cm (excluding hand). Feb 2024
An assemblage of household items (a jar opener, a spinning top and a document clip). In the photograph the assemblage is paired with a human hand to create an ambiguous form. There are suggestions of a flowering plant, a human form or an apparatus with a wheel.
A spontaneously conceived piece of artwork created while I was putting away the washing up in the kitchen. The shadows are created by the ceiling lights.
This is a good example of finding inspiration anywhere and in mundane objects and mundane places, and of the importance of being open to inspiration striking at any time.
In some ways it’s a piece of readymade art, being basically a fork plucked from my dish rack, however the importance of the shadows also makes it into shadow art in which the cast shadows are as important as the object casting the shadows.
Workman’s tools and handyman’s tools are a frequent feature of my work, with my first sketches of them dating from my early twenties, about fifty years ago.
I’ve always liked the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic qualities of hand tools. Pliers, such as the ones here, have legs that are suggestive of human legs and jaws that are suggestive of crocodile jaws or perhaps pterodactyl jaws. The business end of tin snips and garden pruners resemble the beaks of birds, and hammers have heads.
Another appeal about hand tools is their robust usefulness. They tend to look strong and they make hard physical work that much easier.
They are also nostalgic. In my youth my father had a garden shed that contained racks and racks of tools that were in constant use for repairing broken household items and for constructing basic items of furniture. Now such tools feel as though they may be on the brink of extinction as people no longer fix things and as what tools there still are tend to be power tools which lack the simple physicality of hand tools
Steel pliers, ceramic head, magnet. 15x15x1cm August 2024
An anthropomorphic sculpture composed of a pair of pliers to which a ceramic head has been attached.
I made the head about thirty years ago in around 1994.
I call the piece Homo Habilis after the extinct species of human that lived in Eastern and Southern Africa about two million years ago. Homo Habilis literally means Handy Man, which in my piece nicely links to the handyman’s tool, the pliers. Homo Habilis is also referred to as ‘Man the Toolmaker’, which links equally nicely with the piece.
Pliers, wood, paper, acrylic. August 2024. 335x335x30mm
A pair of workman’s pliers mounted on coloured paper with three painted hemispheres of wood attached.
To me the pliers have a pleasing anthropomorphic appearance, with their handles resembling legs (here dressed in brightly coloured trousers or stockings).
The three hemispheres disrupt the shape of the pliers, visually separating the jaws at the top of the tool from the base. This is reinforced by the fact that these particular pliers have brightly coloured plastic on the handles (the trousers) which are there to insulate the user of the pliers from any accidental contact with live electricity.
The use of handyman’s or workman’s tools such as hammers, pliers and spanners is a recurring theme in my work.
Mirror, wood, paper, acrylic. 30 x 30 x 20cm. August 2024
A mirror-based artwork. It features a mirror mounted perpendicular to a coloured ground on which are mounted two hemispheres in different colours. The hemispheres are positioned so that the reflection of one hemisphere in the mirror precisely coincides with the position of the other hemisphere. This creates an intriguing effect when the viewer observes the work from different angles.
Mirrors are a useful device for the exploration of perception and the interpretation of what we see. I think this is partly because perfect reflections like those found in mirrors are almost nonexistent in the natural world other than when they are observed on stretches of water such as puddles, ponds and lakes in perfectly still conditions. When you look at a puddle, a pond or a lake you know exactly what you’re looking at, so your brain knows that the reflection in its surface is an optical effect, especially because the nature of the surface will usually be betrayed by the occasional ripple or the presence of a floating object such as a leaf or a duck.
Mirrors however are different. They are almost always seen in an artificial context in which the brain has to do a bit of work in deciding what it’s actually looking at. And to compound this, mirrors are almost always vertical (which the surface of a puddle or a pond never is). Put a mirror in a slightly unusual context and the brain can be deceived, which is a good avenue into the study of perception.
I’ve noticed several artworks recently that are modelled on the shape of tissue boxes. These include one in the recent 2024 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (Mannanan by Brian Kneale RA) and a mention of them relating to the work of Florence Carr who is set to do a solo presentation at Frieze London 2024 this October.
A version of my tissue box work containing an object in the form of a door lock (showing the internal structure).
Above are a couple of photos of one of my own experiments with tissue boxes in which I painted an old tissue box blue on the outside and red on the inside.
My tissue box sculpture was probably inspired by seeing a large marble work by Anish Kapoor in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in (I think) 2021.
I very much doubt that the Anish Kapoor work was inspired by the shape of a tissue box, however once I’d seen the similarity I couldn’t get it out of my head, very much in the same way that once you’ve seen the shape of a human form in an abstract painting you can’t unseen it.
The sphere that’s resting on top of the bottle is an old tennis ball that has lost all of its coating and that seems to have been left outside in the elements for a very long time. I think I found it in the garden, probably lost there by the previous owner of the property. Because of its colour, patina and texture it looks a lot more substantial than it actually is.
The shape of the bottle and the fact that the glass isn’t of uniform thickness suggests a vintage vessel, but it is actually a contemporary supermarket salad dressing bottle that was still being used for its original purpose the day before it was requisitioned for this sculpture. The salad dressing company were probably trying to tap into the current demand for artisan foodstuffs and consumer goods.
The found objects in this sculpture are unmodified and there is minimal physical input or compositional decisions that need making in the creation the work (The ball has to be place on top of the bottle, pure and simple). This probably makes the piece a form of readymade.
A sculptural work composed of coloured hemispheres reflected in a mirror to create the illusion of complete spheres.
The mirror is a front coated mirror so that there is no gap between the hemispheres resting on the surface of the mirror and the reflection.
The sculpture includes one complete sphere that creates the effect of a pair of spheres when reflected. This sphere is there for compositional purposes, but it fortuitously helps to emphasise the nature of the reflections of the hemispheres.
This work can be wall mounted or can be displayed horizontally.
The work explores the themes of mirrors, reflections and illusions that have featured recurrently in my work over the decades.
The Oppressor Empaled. A sculpture about oppression.
Hammer, nails, wood. 18x34x26cm. May 2023.
This sculpture was shown in the ING Discerning Eye exhibition in the Mall Galleries, London, November 2024. It is a work of political art, in the form of a metaphor for oppression and rebellion. The work shows a hammer empaled by nails. Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits – the nails. The hammer is a symbol of oppression and dictatorship and the nails are symbols of the oppressed. But the sculpture poses a question – how did the nails manage to drive themselves into the hammer? Nails by their nature need a hammer, or a stand-in for a hammer, in order to be effective and to fulfil their purpose. Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not a metaphor for the oppressed rising up against their oppressor (the hammer) using their own power, but are more like the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer that they’ve empaled.
The leaders of liberation movements against repression often become oppressors or dictators in their turn.
This sculpture is a development of an idea that I had in 2010 when it started life as a drawing of a hammer with three nails driven into it. Since then it developed into a 3D sculptural work composed of a hammer nailed directly onto a flat surface as though pinned down. The iteration here has the hammer suspended above a surface and with many more nails driven into it so that it’s starting to resemble a nail fetish figure.
Mirrors, wood blocks, acrylic 30x30x27cm January 2022
Two angled mirrors creating multiple reflections.
The mirrors are angled at 45º to each other and the wood blocks between the mirrors each have a 45º angle at one end, allowing them to fit perfectly into the space between the mirrors.
The wood blocks are movable, allowing different patterns to be created. Due to the 45º angles of the mirrors the patterns are often in the form of crosses with square elements superimposed.
Environmental art sculpture, commercially bought globes. February 2023.
The sculpture is composed of one large globe with several smaller globes attached to it.
The use of a globe of the Earth in the sculpture reflects my interest in environmental issues and in creating environmental art. My concerns about environmentalism go back to the 1960s, when I was mainly concerned with threats to wildlife. Since then the list of environmental concerns has grown and now includes climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation and other aspects of environmentalism.
One of several interpretations of the work is that it shows that on the one physical planet Earth there exist multiple cultural world-views.
A sculpture composed of a mirror with a sculptural form made of card and paper attached to its surface. The card and paper are painted with acrylic paint.
The interlinking of, and interplay between, the horizontal and vertical forms in the sculpture are significant features of the piece.
The upright sculptural forms are held in place on the mirror by magnets attached to the back of the mirror. The magnets attract small pieces of steel tape that are embedded in the card of the sculpture. This ensures that the sculpture can be held invisibly on the mirror, with no obvious means of attachment such as fasteners or glue.
The mirror in this piece is a standard rear-coated mirror, so there is a separation between the objects on the mirror and their reflections. Some of the pieces on the mirror are painted a different colour on the side that is facing the mirror so that the underside adds an extra element to the composition. In other works where I don’t want a separation between the objects and their reflections I use front-coated mirrors.
A sculpture composed of a pair of large pliers and a pair of small pliers. I suppose it fits into the category of sculpture made with found objects or sculptures made of scrap. The pliers are held together by a magnet, although they do actually balance without it, if a bit precariously. The resulting figure resembles a person with arms held high and with horns. Maybe a demon. The figure actually reminds me of a bodybuilder: the stocky torso and muscular legs, not to mention the pose.
A mirror piece consisting of a semicircle of card half of which passes inside a box-like construction. The semicircle and box are resting on a mirror so that the semicircle appears to be part of a full circle that enters and exits the box.
The reflection of the box makes the box appear to be half of a square structure, with the circle entering and leaving the interior of the square via its openings where the square is cut. This gives rise to the title of the piece, Squaring the Circle.
The mirror is a front-coated (or first-coated) mirror. Unlike standard mirrors that have their reflective coating on the rear surface of the glass front-coated mirrors have the reflective surface on the front. With a standard mirror the thickness of the glass creates a gap or space between the object on the glass and the reflection, while with a front-coated mirror the object and the reflection are ‘touching’.
A wall mounted sculpture composed of a mirror with a sculptural form made of card attached to its surface. The card is painted with acrylic paint.
The sculptural form is held in place on the mirror by a magnet attached to the back of the mirror. The magnet attracts a small piece of steel tape that is embedded in the card of the sculpture. This ensures that the sculpture can be held invisibly on the mirror, with no obvious means of attachment such as bolts or glue.
The mirror is a front-coated (or first-coated) mirror. Unlike standard mirrors that have their reflective coating on the rear surface of the glass front-coated mirrors have the reflective surface on the front. If a standard mirror had been used the thickness of the glass would have created a gap or space between the object on the glass and its reflection, while with a front-coated mirror the object and the reflection are ‘touching’.
Prestige steel baking tray on front of glazed picture frame 46x60cm 2008
A work created from a mundane everyday object – a kitchen baking tray – mounted on the exterior of a glazed picture frame.
One of the motivations behind the work was to show the beauty and rich visual interest intrinsic in mundane objects from mundane environments.
Below is a detail of the intricate patterns and patina on the steel surface of the baking tray. The word ‘Prestige’ it the centre is an important feature.
I’ve been interested in the concept of finding beauty in the mundane ever since I admired the colours in the film of detergent on a wire mess kitchen utensil (maybe a cake stand) as it caught the sun. That was in my parents’ kitchen about sixty years ago.
Wood, plastic. June 2022. Solo exhibition, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall.
A mobile sculpture consisting of wooden spheres with plastic hands that form wings.
Hands are a recurrent theme in my work, as is flight. I’ve created several works that feature hands as wings, usually in the form of sketches and other drawings.
Using hands as wings is actually far from being far-fetched. The wings of birds and bats both evolved from hands (which is why birds and bats don’t have hands – it’s a choice of one or the other. Angels and fairies have both, but they are made up and are anatomically incorrect). Insect wings evolved along a different route, possibly from heat-gathering flaps or panels (insects being very dependant on the heat of the sun).
The symbolism of flight is linked closely with the concept of freedom. This link can be overstated, I think, especially when we project it onto the natural world. We envy the flight of birds, but birds don’t fly because they are free. Small birds that in theory can fly wherever they please often tend to spend their whole lives in a single place such as an individual tree. Some of them may migrate thousands of miles to reach their chosen tree, but they’ve possibly travelled there from another individual tree in a different part of the world. On top of this, on isolated islands that have no predators birds frequently lose the power of flight, so flying obviously isn’t one of their primary concerns.
Two mirrors joined along their bottom horizontal edges are held at an angle to each other. Placed between the mirrors are three painted card sections of circles. Multiple reflections of the sections of card around the axis of the joined mirrors produce full circles. There are six reflections (or multiple reflections) in the mirrors, creating a full circle composed of seven sections.
A second component of coloured card is lying flat on the surface beside the mirror structure. The shape and colour of this second construction add another dimension to the assemblage as a whole. The fact that this part of the piece is in two colours and that it forms only part of a ring add to the resonance of the structure.
Below is a video of the sculpture. Because of the nature of the multiple reflections in the mirrors it’s particularly important to see the sculpture from different angles.
