Introduction / Statement
1978 to 1985. I started an apprenticeship as a tool room maintenance engineer, refurbishing industrial plant machinery and manufacturing specialist tools and machinery for research and development purposes. In 1985 I applied for a job with British Aerospace. This included dismantling and rebuilding F1-11 fighters for the American Air Force, working on air frames and services for passenger aircraft mainly HS 146, Airbus and A320,A330 and A340 aircraft. I worked for BAe for ten years. In 1995 after a considerable shift in work practices and restructuring at BAe I decided to take a voluntary redundancy package and with the support of my wife and children I was able to pursue an alternative career.
1995 to 2003. Using the skills I gained throughout my engineering career and my love of art, I was able to progress from a diploma course at City of Bath College through to a first class Hon's degree in sculpture from Norwich School of Art. I then gained a place at the Royal College of Art. After my MA I was employed by the RCA as a foundry assistant and technician, helping with the everyday running of the foundry. I stayed with the RCA for two years, and taught sculpture part time at Chelsea School of Art.
2003 to 2006. I worked part time as a Lecturer and technician, and as artist in residence, at the University of Wales Institute of Cardiff (UWIC). And fin 2007 I was offered a full time position as sculpture and foundry art technician and demonstrator at UWIC, Cardiff.
The way in which we explore the world can have a profound impact on how we observe the things around us. The sculptor’s intention is to engage visitors in a game of recognition. If we stick our head beneath the sea or lift our heads into the sky we can see a world that is different from our own. Through our relationship to an artwork, we are transported into the world of our imaginations, into a land of endlessly fleeting but eternally possible fantasies, and here we are put in touch with the mind’s infinite complexities. The sculptures I make reside in all these worlds as an amalgamation of history, personal reflection and intrigue. I’m a collector and over the years I’ve built up a cabinet of curiosities, which contains a host of eclectic items that have caught my eye. The relationships between these objects and the process of thought and reaction informs my work, it reveals the structures that for me convey these complex feelings of human knowledge. Throughout this process of making, a world of appearance and experience is revealed.
All we make by hand may be thought of as a pathway that sets the imagination free to indulge in these fantasies and this in turn reveals a truly infinite machine.