assemblage

Sculpture about cooperation

Bridge. A sculpture as a metaphor for cooperation.

Document clips, wood 18x31x10cm Jan 2025

A sculpture composed of document clips that grip each other to form an arch or bridge. The bridge spans the gap between two pieces of wood on which the document clips stands.

Part of the concept behind the assemblage is that the arch of clips literally bridges the gap between the two separate parts of the base. The linked clips represent the concept of achievements that can only be made by cooperation with others (In this case with other document clips). It’s a metaphor for communication and cooperation.

The fact that the clips are in a variety of different colours is significant, as it represents diverse types of people cooperating. The colours aren’t meant to signify any particular quality of diversity such as race or sexuality, just diversity in general.

It’s quite a literal sculpture, conveying a straightforward concept. It’s also a simple and elegant form. Simple in form and simple in concept – that makes a change.

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Overthrowing the Oppressor at ING Discerning Eye exhibition 2024

Overthrowing the Oppressor.

Hammer, nails, wood 15x30x30cm 2024

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?

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Assemblage

Assemblage of household items – and a hand

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.

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Ball and Bottle – found objects sculpture

Found objects sculpture – ball and bottle

Ball, bottle 23 x 5.5 x 5.5cm June 2024

A sculpture composed of found objects.

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.

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Art about oppression – contemporary political sculpture

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.

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Anthropomorphic Assemblage from Tools

Anthropomorphic Sculpture from Tools

Steel pliers, magnet. 8x3x18cm February 2024

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.

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Anthropomorphic assemblage

Anthropomorphic sculpture from found objects.

Mole wrench and oil can cap. October 2023.

A mole wrench and an oil can cap create an anthropomorphic sculpture suggesting an embracing couple.

The sculpture came about when I was about to put teak oil on my kitchen worktop, which was something I’d been putting off for the previous five years. The cap of the tin of teak oil was rusted in place due to lack of use and I had to take it off using a mole wrench. Holding the resulting wrench and cap combination instantly I sensed the potential for it to be a work of art in some way, partly because the oil can’s cap resembled an eye when the light struck it. At first I thought that the assemblage perhaps resembled a fish, but after a bit of turning it round in my hands I saw human forms emerge.

This is a good example of the way that people can interpret objects differently to the nature of the objects themselves. I believe that our brains interpret things based on a hierarchy of significance. The brain sees something and then scans down a list of likely possibilities for what the thing is, with highly significant things at the top of the list. At the very top of the list is ‘human being’. Very much lower down the list, if it’s on the list a all, is ‘mole wrench’. When you see a mole wrench in a tool box you automatically go straight to the ‘mole wrench’ item way down your brain’s list, because the context in which you see the wrench is strongly suggestive that it is indeed a mole wrench that you’re looking at. However, in the context-free setting of the photo above your brain has to work harder and has to consult its built-in list of possibilities, at the top of which is ‘human being’. The wrench possesses something of the shape of a human form, and thus the connection is made. The fact that the wrench is standing in a way that no mole wrench in the real world could do without support helps to amplify the effect.

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Moiré effect generated by mesh and a mirror

Moiré effect generated by a mesh on a mirror

Concave mirror, plastic mesh. 8x8x10cm. July 2024

A study of the moiré patterns that are generated when a mesh is placed above a mirror.

The mesh is rolled into a cone shape which creates moiré patterns where the mesh overlaps itself.

A concave mirror at the base of the mesh creates an enlarged and distorted image of the mesh, further complicating the patterns that the mesh generates.

The mirror in this study is a convex mirror taken from a bicycle rear view mirror with the mirror inverted to expose the concave rear of the mirror. The mesh is the plastic mesh from a supermarket pack of easy peel oranges.

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Assemblage – bicycle saddle and ceramic pot

Ceramic vessel with bicycle saddle assemblage.

Sculpture. 2021.

A ceramic pot with a bicycle saddle. The bicycle saddle is attached to a conventional bicycle seat pillar which is inserted into the narrow opening at the top of the ceramic vessel.

In the context of the sculpture the shape of the bike seat automatically evokes the form of an animal head.

Whenever the words bicycle seat, animal head and art are mentioned in the same sentence the name of Pablo Picasso and his 1942 work, Bull’s Head, inevitably come to mind. But we mustn’t let the great man’s work prevent the rest of us from using the same idea. He probably wasn’t the first person to think it up anyway, just the most famous. Remember, it was him who said “Good artists copy. Great artists steal”

In my sculpture the bicycle saddle doesn’t only suggest an animal head. Something about its shape also evokes the concept of a sail or of some form of crest shaped modern architectural structure.

Below is a variation of the sculpture where I’ve cleaved the saddle firmly to its animal head incarnation by adding a pair of headphones. The headphones have the pleasing effect of looking like a weird pair of eyes as well as a pair of headphones. The idea of adding the headphones came to me simply because there was pair of headphones lying on the floor next to the sculpture.

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Doll

Sculpture. Found objects. 2023

An anthropomorphic sculpture made of found objects.

The doll’s head was found buried in my garden and the empty custard carton was found in my kitchen.

The custard carton has been squeezed to extract every last bit of custard from inside. It was a simple matter to create a ready-made sculpture by attaching the doll’s head to the cap of the carton, especially as the head was rather sinisterly only the front of the head, thus it possessed a convenient rim that could be gripped by the carton’s screw cap.

With the doll’s head attached, the custard carton is instantly transformed from being a crumpled piece of consumer waste into a doll’s body or a baby’s body. A quite disturbing body at that.

The interpretation of the carton as a body in this sculpture is the result of the phenomenon of pareidolia, which is the tendency to see significant forms where they don’t exist (Faces in clouds and such-like). The presence of the doll’s head helps of course. Art, especially modern and contemporary art, is hugely reliant on pareidolia, as it allows a circle with a couple of dots inside it to become a human face.

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Hammers bound together

Hammers bound together

Hammers, shoe laces March 2022

Three hammers bound together with shoe laces. The hammers are different sizes, creating a dynamic visual effect and implying a differential power status between the hammers.

The fact that the hammers are bound together renders them useless as hammers, making them impotent. However, maybe they’re not bound together to reduce their power – maybe they are bound together to create unity. Maybe the price of unity is a reduction in individual power. But is the price of unit a reduction in group power?

The hammers exhibited in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, 2022.

The work is a study of power, restraint and impotence. It’s also a nice composition. The inspiration came in my studio when I placed one hammer directly on top of another one (By chance or deliberately? I don’t know).

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Contemporary sculpture – clothes rack stack

Clothes Rack Stack

Commercial clothes racks. 2022

An installation composed of three clothes racks forming a pyramid.

The pyramid of racks is this size purely because I only possess three clothes racks. Given a larger space and a larger number of racks the pyramid can be huge. You may notice in the photo that as well as a pausity of racks the low ceiling in the room mitigates against the construction of monumental artworks.

This is a typical example of a work that almost created itself (I thought of it while I was moving the racks so that I could dry my washing). I have often admired the interplay of the horizontal and diagonal lines in the racks while I was using them for their proper purpose, but it was only recently that the idea of stacking them occurred to me.

This work is probably partly inspired by the art movements of constructivism, dada and arte povera.

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Political protest art – the Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed

The Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed. Hammer and nails sculpture.

Hammer, nails. This version, May 2022. Original concept, 2010.

This sculpture is partly a metaphor for oppression and rebellion.
The work shows a hammer nailed to a surface by nails.
Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits.
How did the nails manage to impale the hammer? Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not necessarily a metaphor for the oppressed rising up to overthrow 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’s been overthrown.
The use of handyman’s tools such as hammers, pliers and spanners is a recurring feature of my artwork.

The work in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, 2022

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Metamorphosis – recycling in contemporary art

Metamorphosis (from pie containers to insect larvae)

Wood (recycled food containers). 2021.

An assemblage or sculpture fabricated from recycled wooden pie containers.
The pie containers, for Charlie Bigham pies (mainly fish pies with the odd cauliflower cheese in there), are stacked as curved forms suggestive of insect larvae such as caterpillars or grubs.
Insect larvae undergo metamorphosis when they change into the imago or mature form of the insect. Here the pie containers have undergone a similar metamorphosis by turning into the insect larvae.

This work reflects my interest in the natural world and the environment, as well as my concerns for environmental issues caused by human activity (this work being an example of recycling or upcycling of consumer waste).
An example of art made from scrap material. A form of arte povera perhaps.

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Unstable construction assemblage

Unstable construction made of G clamps

G clamps. 40x40x40cm (variable). 2021.

A sculpture or assemblage composed of G clamps.
G clamps are usually used for holding work together temporarily, such as when components are being glued together. Here the G clamps are holding on to each other so that they are part of a structure themselves rather than an instrument for creating a structure. The angle of the piece gives the structure a feeling of instability. This could have allusions to the instability of the modern world that we have constructed through our use of industry and technology, where the very means by which we have constructed our world leads to its inherent precariousness, especially now that we are inflicting such serious damage on the environment.

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Nailed and clamped sculpture

Clamped and nailed

G clamp, nails, wooden sphere. 20 x 20 x 15cm. 2022.

This sculpture or assemblage is almost an accidental artwork.
The nails in the sphere were put there to attach other objects to. The G clamp is there to hold the two halves of the sphere together (It’s composed of two hemispheres glued together.
One of the skills needed in art is the ability to see the unexpected.

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Artwork created from vinyl records

Vinyl Tower Assemblage

Vinyl records, mixed media. 2022

A sculpture constructed from vinyl records.
The star-shaped object at the top of the tower, which looks like a radio transmitter, is composed of pawns from a chess set (a recurring theme in my work).

The work in my solo exhibition at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance, Cornwall. May – June 2022

There’s another work composed of vinyl records here.

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Vinyl records

Floor assemblage: vinyl records

12 inch vinyl records Dimensions variable May 2022

A sculptural work composed of a number of 12 inch vinyl LP records arranged on the floor. The records are placed on blocks to hold them above the floor.

These photos were taken at my solo exhibition at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, in 2022.

Part of the appeal of this work, to me, is in the fact that the vinyl records of which it is composed are ruthlessly precise and austere in their physical presence – perfect discs of shiny black plastic – but that they contain in themselves the information for producing music, perhaps the most ethereal of art forms. The manner in which the discs seem to hover above the ground seems to link the physical nature of the records with the floating, insubstantial nature of music. The physical delicacy of the analogue information storage system which contains the information about the music on the disks (the grooves) is also significant.

There’s another work composed of vinyl records here.

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Reflections in a mirror through a sieve

Mirror sieve

Mirror, sieve 30x25x20cm May 2022

An assemblage composed of a kitchen sieve placed in front of an old framed mirror. The reflection of the mesh of the sieve in the mirror creates interesting Moiré fringes as it interacts with the actual mesh.

When a person looks at their reflection in the mirror through the mesh of the sieve the observer experiences a degree of psychological distancing from their reflected self, almost as though the reflected person is in a strange cage.

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Assemblage composed of G-clamps

Assemblage of G-clamps

G-clamps and speed clamp. September 2021

A sculpture constructed from G-clamps attached to a speed clamp.
Normally clamps are used in order to hold other objects together (such as glued pieces of wood while the glue dries). Here the clamps are holding each other together. The assemblage can be interpreted as a metaphor for human society holding itseld together by using its own inherent qualities and strengths.

An version of this concept shows the clamps at an angle – possibly a metaphor for the precariousness of the cohesion of human society.

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