Alan Todd Visual Artist

Thank you for visiting my website. I’m Alan Todd and I have been an artist all of my life initially as a painter, and musician. I took up sculpture in the 1980s and worked in contemporary dance theatre for three decades as a designer and choreographer. I began a career as a writer in 1989 and have been making short films for some time. Some of these have been added to my youtube site.

I exhibit extensively.

I hope you find something of interest in my work and ideas. In a sense, all of my work is autobiographical. For me, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum and while instinct will always play a part there is always a beginning point based upon an exploration of an idea.

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SCULPTURE

I work principally in wood and steel. Industrial materals are a deliberate choice and follow in a family tradition. My father was a skilled metalworker and woodworker and I grew up surrounded by the things he made. However, while his projects were always utilitarian from furniture to toys, my sculptures are the opposite. They exist as objects in their own right.

The influences on my work are wide and varied from the monuments of the past to sculptors such as David Smith, Picasso, Brancusi, Noguchi, Nevellson, the Constructivists, Judd and contemporary installationists such as Barlow and Drew. There is hardly an artist of the last century who has not in some way influenced my thinking. Growing up in Hertfordshire in the UK put me only a few miles down the road frrom Henry Moore.

Essentially I am a constructor looking for ways to express complex ideas without negating those aspects of the materials I use. Most of the wood comes from hardware stores so there are set sizes which determine scale. In using plywood I respect the way it is made. Mild steel comes in bars, plate and rods and again I respect the industrial origins of the material. Ocassionally I venture into copper and sheet glass. Exotic woods such as mahogany and ebony are a luxury but again I try to use them in ways which relfect how I find them as offcuts.

PAINTING

I began as a painter some five decades ago but while the ideas correspond to those in the sculptures, the approach to paintings has alawys been much more flexible and fluid. While the sculptures explore for the most part explore themes realted to time and history, the paintings are personal and based on memory.

The extensive series ‘Conversations with my Father ‘is ironic in that the conversations never took place. So much was never said and our lives were separated by half a world and a lack of understanding. Each painting is a moment when something happened in my life.

The series ‘Myth, Memory and Metamorphosis’ centered on the now defunct area of Port Adelaide. I was too late to see it as an active port with sailing vessels but the expanses of concrete and 200 years of rotted wood and oily water impreesed me with their resilience to change.