Distilling Essences

As I have curated the blog for assessment, the same question has arisen time and time again. Can I say in a sentence what I do? From now on, I will be asked this many times. To be able to answer this is important if I am to engage people with a few words that can be easily understood, remembered and transmitted. It is part of the process of moving on both on a personal and professional level.

The project proposal starts with the aim…

To merge creation myths and evolutionary ideas in layered narratives inflected with a sense of the sacred, exploring the tension between the ancestral animal self and the Anthropocene human self, arising out of their separation and indissoluble connection.

The word myth comes from the Greek mythos, which means anything delivered by word of mouth. This is why I named one of the works Logos, a word with multiple meanings. To create a myth, it first has to be spoken. Being able to say what I do in words is important but it is only part of the process. An artwork speaks in another language.

The above aim can be condensed into a statement…

I work with the idea of the animal self inhabiting the human self, creating a mythology in terms of evolution and drawing from creation myths for inspiration.

…which can be reduced further as…

Sculpture and its extension is a way of bringing a myth into the world.

In those two final sentences lies a whole world of possibilities. It makes me think that…

When I feel the clay, I touch the immemorial past where myths are made.