play   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.  

Essentially I am a constructor looking for ways to express complex ideas without losing connection to the materials. The materials come from hardware stores so commercial pine and plywood play a major role alongside a variety of plastic, rope and metal objects.

.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 always been much more flexible and fluid. While the sculptures explore for the most part themes related 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 which I wish I could have shared. He never saw the paintings. 

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.

DRAWING

Drawing has always been a tool both for recording the world and as a creative tool. Graphite has always been my preferred medium.